Valerie Milot, Stephane Tetrault and Antoine Bareil, three young and well established musicians, are collaborating for the first time to carry out a major recording project. Focused primarily on French music from the first half of the 20th century, this release reveals the subtle blend of sonorities formed by the harp, cello, and violin through the major works by Jacques Ibert and Henriette Renie. The trio also performs a dazzling, encore-worthy Passacaglia for violin and cello by Handel/Halvorsen and a sweet, introspective finale in the form of a transcription of a Schubert lied.

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REVIEWS:

Focused primarily on French music from the first half of the 20th century, this album reveals the subtle blend of sonorities formed by the harp, cello, and violin through the trios of Jacques Ibert and Henriette Renié. The exploration of this period continues with Danse des lutins, an acrobatic work for harp by Renié. Violinist Antoine Bareil and Cellist Stéphane Tétreault then perform the dazzling Passacaglia by Handel/Halvorsen, before harpist Valérie Milot re-joins the trio for a sweet, introspective finale in the form of a Schubert lied arranged for these forces.

– WFMT 98.7FM (Chicago, IL)

The Ibert trio, beautifully crafted, entertaining, light but not superficial, is an equally apt description of the ensemble itself. Written during wartime, it features an ethereal opening Allegro, a quite beautiful Andante and rather unusually, a Scherzo(ando) to finish, which is motoric and virtuosic.

The work for trio by the little-known Henriette Renié is a most pleasant surprise; it's well sustained in its invention, with considerable passion and drama considering the lack of presence of a piano. It is undeniably French, but it has an unexpected Germanic strength to it.

– MusicWeb International

To celebrate it's 20th anniversary, Canada's largest classical music label, Analekta, is releasing a box set of six CDs and hours of music magnificently interpreted by it's major artists. Angèle Dubeau, Alain Lefèvre, Luc Beauséjour, Anton Kuerti, the Gryphon Trio, Tafelmusik, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and many other artists have each selected their favorite works just for you. 77 tracks. Analekta. 2008.

“I devote my new Portrait album to Max Richter and his impressive body of powerful and original works. I have selected sixteen works with his unique signature, which I revisit here with my violin and my orchestra, La Pietà.” - Angele Dubeau O.C., C.Q., DFA.

Max Richter is one of the most influential composers of his generation. Inspired by Bach, punk rock and ambient electronic music, he has composed works for more than 50 films, including Waltz for Bashir, Shutter Island by Martin Scorcese and Arrival by Denis Villeneuve, as well as HBO's The Leftovers television series.

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REVIEW:

The playing and recording standards are absolutely top-notch. It’s essentially easy, pleasant – and, yes, introspective – listening that will be warmly welcomed by Dubeau’s many regular admirers.

– The Whole Note

As I said in a review of another Philip Glass recording “you know in advance what you are going to get with Philip Glass”. Even more so in the case of this recording, where some of the works - The Hours, Mishima and Company - are already quite known.

The French-Canadian string ensemble La Pietà - all female, in case you hadn’t guessed - and their leader Angèle Dubeau present what is essentially a sampler of the accessible, more recent Glass. Does that mean it will only appeal for someone wishing to hesitantly dip their toe into the Glass pool and be of no interest to the Glass aficionado? Definitely not - the works are all complete as long as you count overtures and opening credits as individual pieces. Some lesser known pieces are included and the performances and acoustics are excellent.

The overture for the “multimedia opera project” La Belle et al Bête (Beauty and the Beast) for piano and strings is the most dramatic and up-tempo music on the disc and gets proceedings off to a fine start. You can see the whole piece performed by Dubeau and La Pietà on Youtube.

I regard the score for The Hours as one of the finest ever written, and this concerto-style arrangement by long-time Glass collaborator Michael Reisman allows a greater continuity than the original itself allows.

I hadn’t heard The Secret Agent film-score before, and based on this haunting cello-dominated extract, I went searching for the complete music, which is available on Nonesuch and I am ordering it as I write. Echorus was written for Yehudi Meuhin and the sleeve-notes describe it as akin to a Baroque chaconne, and quotes Philip Glass “it is meant to evoke feelings of serenity and peace”, which it certainly achieves.

Mishima and Company are respectively string quartets 3 and 2, presented here in their string orchestra versions. The former is more sombre, the latter dominated by the archetypal Glass motoric rhythms and the final eponymously titled movement of Mishima is quite beautiful. The disc ends as it began with piano joining the strings for the elegiac Closing, from Glassworks, and one of the first compositions intended to broaden the audience for Glass’s music.

Detractors will say that there is little variation in atmosphere through the fifteen tracks on the disc, and that is true. However, as I said at the start, you already know that with this composer. In fact, the very constancy of the music’s mood makes this a recording that works at two different levels. Listen to it intently and you are rewarded by glorious melodies and the subtle variations that are his stock-in-trade, or have it playing in the background and soothe your troubled soul.

Suffice to say in conclusion that this is one of the best CDs I have bought this year.

-- David J Barker, MusicWeb International 

The maturity of his playing is most impressive. So too is the scope of his recital, which avoids the obvious. In Beethoven’s Op 51 Rondos he is particularly responsive to the Second Rondo’s more capricious moments, while its close, with a sudden outbreak of high spirits, is delightful. His way with Chopin's early Introduction and Rondo, balancing delicacy and sinew without a hint of sentimentality, is very telling.

But the highlight for me was Enescu’s Second Suite. I have to confess this was new to be—but what a piece! Everywhere, he displays a strong sense of narrative, making him a compelling storyteller. Captured in a warmly immediate recording, Richard-Hamelin is a welcome new voice on the pianistic firmament.

– Gramophone

St. Benoit du Lac is a Benedictine monastery in Southeastern Quebec. It was founded in 1912 by monks from the French abbey of Saint Wandrile, which is part of the Saint Pierre de Solesmes congregation. The monks sing Gregorian chant in the tradition of Solesmes and the monks use their singing, their teaching and their recordings to continue this tradition.
 
Here we have a recording made originally in 1996. Interestingly, though the monastic community dates from 1912 the buildings are more recent. The church was only built a few years before this recording.
 
The title of the disc is Pax and peace seems to be the general theme of the texts. It open with the antiphon In viam pacis and continues with a selection of introits whose theme is peace, ranging from Give peace, o Lord, to the familiar Christmas passage about the Prince of Peace.
 
The disc is structured very roughly around the mass, but with individual elements multiplied up so a group of introits are followed by the Gloria; then three graduals and then three alleluias, Agnus Dei and communion; with finally a selection of hymns and responses. The CD booklet sets out a short but illuminating discussion about how the individual items fit into the theological journey which the monks have constructed. And it is in theological terms rather than purely musical ones that this disc should be seen. The chant here is not sung as a concert, but to evoke an act of worship with the music being purely a vehicle for the theological expression of the text.
 
Rather frustratingly the CD booklet includes little detailed information about when exactly in the church year individual items would be sung. And there are no printed texts, which makes following the theological argument difficult unless one happens to possess a missal or a gradual.
 
And what of the singing? Well, it is certainly characterful. The monks choir does not sound exceptionally large and the solo voices are distinctive and individually expressive. This is a sincere reflection of the music of a community, rather than new age background music.
 
You will find this music better sung elsewhere, but what this disc does convey is a reflection of a community who sing this music every day. 

-- Robert Hugill, MusicWeb International

Kanun, the new album by Didem Basar, is a beautiful blend of Turkish and Western classical music. The dialogue created between the kanun (Turkish zither) and Western classical instruments (flute, percussion, violin and cello) is enriched by Turkish makams (modes), rhythmic cycles and improvisation, in compositions that have a distinctly impressionist approach. After composing and playing with different artists and ensembles for the past 15 years, she creates here a project very much of her own. Born in Istanbul (Turkey) in 1974, Didem started her music education at I.T.U. Turkish Music State Conservatory in 1985. Having completed her kanun training, she continued at the same University’s Composition Department. Her interest in examining the effects of music on society led her to study Sufi Music at Marmara University. She got her master's degree on the musical analysis of Sufi Music in 1999. Since then, she played in many concerts, on album recordings and radio & television programs both in Turkey and abroad.

Founded at the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, Switzerland, Philon Trio is a chamber ensemble consisting of David Dias da Silva on clarinet, Adam Newman on viola, and Camilla Köhnken on piano. It’s in the context of a residency at Canada’s Banff Center for Arts and Creativity in Alberta that they recorded the excellent work 8 Pieces, Op. 83 by the German composer Max Bruch. Bruch was 72 in 1910 when he composed Acht Stucke Op. 83 for his son, Max Felix, already a professional clarinetist. Written in a late but conservative Romantic style, far removed from the language of Bruch’s contemporaries Stravinsky, Bartók, and Schoenberg, this work is deep, intense, passionate and intimate.

David John Pike, one of Canada's leading baritone singers, and the great English organist David Briggs present Mahler: Orchestral Songs - The Organ Transcriptions, an astounding new album offering renditions of three cycles of lieder by Gustav Mahler. The recording of these opulent scores on the phenomenal new Eule organ at the Konstantin-Basilika in Germany, has an immediate appeal. The organ's atonal spectrum and the wondrous acoustic of the basilica give a unique and thrilling dimension to the music. About this recording, Briggs wrote: "I was delighted with David Pike asked me to work with him to record these three wonderful Mahler song cycles. There are many pre-existing recordings with piano accompaniment, but the opportunity to register these opulent scores on the phenomenal new Eule organ at the Konstantin-Basilika, taking the music back to it's very core and recasting it anew, was something that had an immediate appeal..."

This new album by the great pianist and composer Alain Lefevre unveils the results of three years of hard work by Jacques Marchand, George Nicholson and Alain Lefevre aimed at restoring Andre Mathieu’s famous Concerto No. 3. Presented as a world premiere in February 2017 in Buffalo, where it was performed by Alain Lefevre and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of the renowned JoAnn Falletta, the reconstituted Concerto No. 3 was enthusiastically received by the audience. Recorded at those performances, the album Andre Mathieu: Concerto No. 3 accurately conveys the brilliance of Alain Lefevre and the enthusiasm of the musicians, aware as they were of sharing a highly emotional and one-of-a-kind moment. JoAnn Falletta had previously collaborated with Alain Lefevre in presenting works by Mathieu – in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2013, among other settings. It was in the fall of 1942, 75 years ago, that young Quebec prodigy Andre Mathieu, just 13 years old and at the peak of his glory, began writing his Concerto No. 3, which he would finish the following summer. In 2008, George Nicholson discovered the original score of Andre Mathieu’s Concerto No. 3 written in the Quebec composer’s own hand. The differences, which were noteworthy, between this original score and the Concerto de Quebec, the well-known, modified, version of the work, were the starting point for an enormous undertaking aimed at restoring this masterwork of Mathieu’s. The new album also contains George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered in 1928, the work translates into music the vivid impressions of an American visiting Paris, strolling the city streets and soaking up the exuberant atmosphere of the French capital.

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REVIEW:

After languishing unnoticed for several decades, in 2008 the original autograph score for two pianos of Andre Mathieu's Concerto No. 3 was discovered in Ottawa. Since then, composer and conductor Jacques Marchand has prepared a critical edition that is faithful to the original manuscript. This is its first full recording. It has all the sweeping gestures of its period and a devilishly difficult piano part. Lefèvre’s performance at the keyboard is masterful. He and the BPO perform the work with astonishing authenticity, restoring a fascinating chapter to Canadian music history of that period.

– The Whole Note (Canada)

This album explores the cello’s origins and the creative process of new music fascinate Elinor Frey. Her excellent new album, Guided by Voices, consists of six commissions for baroque cello, including three for the five-string cello. Composed by Scott Godin, Linda Catlin Smith, Ken Ueno, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Maxime McKinley and Lisa Streich, these new works played on instruments built in recent years reveal the incredible versatility and remarkable colors of the instruments which have inspired these outstanding composers. Elinor Frey plays both period and modern instruments. Her recent release on the Belgian label Passacaille, Berlin Sonatas with Lorenzo Ghielmi on fortepiano, was nominated for a Juno award for Best Classical Album, Solo & Chamber Music and won the 2015 Québec Opus Prize for Early Music album of the year. Her first Baroque album, La voce del violoncello, was praised for its “careful scholarship and brilliant layering of moods and tempos” (Toronto Star) and for the “honest, reflective beauty of her music making” (Strings). Her performance of this program was the winner of the public prize at the 2013 Utrecht Early Music Festival Fringe.