In this year’s listening, the balance swung back from classical toward the popular a little again. In the non-classical arena, the focus for me is still on acoustic music, real instruments and warm, open production. The year has also been full of delighted rediscoveries and re-connections with ‘old friends.’ For instance—even though she doesn’t have a 2011 release—it’s clear to me now that I haven’t spent nearly enough time over the years listening to Laurie Anderson, who remains a singular creative talent and political voice in American music.

As before, I will limit my lists to records released in 2011. I won’t add re-releases that came out in 2011, though there were many (like U2′s Achtung Baby, or the Smiths box set).

Best new music – Popular, jazz, world, etc.

Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane: Finally, another Alison Krauss & Union Station album! Even though I liked her excursion with Robert Plant, it didn’t really ‘stick.’ Krauss’ clear soprano is still best framed by the inimitable “newgrass” sound of her original band of ace instrumentalists and harmony singers. Another impeccable collection of modern country songs wrapped in traditional dress, this is well worth owning and listening to repeatedly. There is something very wonderful and grounding about this band’s output—a world where such musicianship can exist cannot be all bad, despite what the news may suggest.

Amos Lee – Mission Bell: Amos Lee is a talented songwriter and, as a vocalist, sounds somewhat like the young Cat Stevens. This is his fourth solo album and constitutes a sort of emergence from under the yoke of having been typecast as a sort of Norah Jones alike in his early recording career. On Mission Bell, he teams up with the producer-musicians from the wonderful Calexico (a perennial favourite of mine in their own right, and competent instigators of making others sound cool on a number of different records, for example on the I’m Not There soundtrack). Mission Bell is well worth hearing and becomes more rewarding as you listen repeatedly.

Helge Lien Trio – Natsukashii: I haven’t written nearly enough about Norwegian jazz here. Every jazz musician in the country seems to have a unique, Nordic take on the genre. And while the roots of this trio are clearly somewhere between ECM’s spacious acoustic and the minimalist groove of E.S.T., the focus here shifts from having bebop as its base to something simpler, less technical, more emotionally resonant. Perhaps it’s a conscious further development of the moment when Keith Jarrett is said to have brought ‘folk’ elements into his solo improvisations, perhaps it’s the influence of Scandinavian mythology (or heavy metal?), but this trio sounds like the architect rock stars of what jazz will turn into eventually—and increasingly, this is the kind of talent jazz needs in order to continue to be a vital genre in the 21st century.

Iron and Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean: I deliberately listen to very little ‘indie’ music these days, having somehow grown tired of it in the last few years. Rock rarely grabs my ears the way it once used to. But this caught my ear by surprise and hasn’t really let go. Bright, intelligently arranged songs full of strong melodies. There’s a kind of 80s sensibility to this record which seems different to anything else I’d heard by Iron and Wine—it’s more ‘pop’ than the more folk/country-oriented, subdued work we previously heard from Sam Beam.

Sierra Hull – Daybreak: Sierra Hull is a very young and very talented bluegrass singer and mandolin player. As an Alison Krauss protegé, she benefits from the same widescreen production values and outstanding musicians her mentor employs on her own albums. But there’s something so singularly well done about this that it doesn’t really fit into the “sounds like” category. She plays and sings with the confidence of someone much more experienced, and her songwriting is also excellent. And there are two mandolin-focused instrumentals here that’ll make your speakers smoke.

Nitin Sawhney – Last Days of Meaning: Nitin Sawhney is a UK producer/composer/DJ who originally came to fame as part of a late 90s wave of “Asian underground” DJs who were pioneering a multi-culti dance sound (then) unique to the UK. Since that time, his songwriting ambition has steadily grown through a series of subtle and exceedingly well-produced records featuring guest vocalists from various cultural backgrounds (East, West, and everything in between). Lately, his albums have included more cultural/political commentary—usually told through fictional characters and their stories. In this latest effort, veteran actor John Hurt plays a hermitic old man with conservative, xenophobic views who’s been sent a tape containing songs that—at the surface—sound like everything he hates about the world. Listening to them, he gradually softens and gains new insights. Sawhney’s songs are outstanding miniatures, intelligently written and true to their specific genres. Highly, highly recommended (as is virtually everything else Sawhney’s ever released, including his soundtrack for the BBC’s Human Planet).

Coeur de Pirate – Blonde: My original review is here.

Tinariwen – Tassili: Another fantastic record from Mali’s most amazing musical export (currently living, that is). This is the blues in its original form, all two chords of it, and you can clearly hear where John Lee Hooker’s inspiration came from. Tinariwen are an excellent band with strong rhythm, a rock ‘n roll attitude and an uncompromising musical vision. The fact that Tinariwen are joined here once or twice by some people from TV on the Radio is only a minor distraction (and actually quite good). What’s consistently awesome is how sophisticated and engaging this trance-inducing music with the sing-song melodies and limited harmonic development is. It’s the sort of world music that gives back a mile when you give an inch.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator: I think Derek Trucks is currently the world’s best blues guitarist. He’s an unfailingly tasteful and minimalist player who seems to have no technical limitations and effortlessly puts simple licks into strategic spots in songs where they genuinely matter musically. Formerly a touring guitarist of the Allman Brothers Band and fronting his own outfit, the Derek Trucks Band, Trucks has now joined forces with his wife Susan Tedeschi (a superb blues singer/songwriter) and a cast of 11 or so others, including two (!) drummers. The results are astounding and exhilarating, half blues, half soul, all played true to the idiom with perfect phrasing on guitar and vocals. Two giants, really, at the top of their respective game. You should totally buy this.

Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive: Another accomplished album by Steve Earle. Continuing the “new Steve Earle” trajectory he started in the mid 90s, this record reaffirms the departure from ‘country’ and mines an immense number of related genres: alt-country, folk, roots rock, Irish reels, even Tom Waits (who, let’s face it, is a genre unto himself). I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is merely a solid Steve Earle record (certainly not the greatest he’s made), but as such is one of the better albums of the year virtually by definition. Deeply credible, critical of the political status quo, committed to social justice without being preachy, able to wield a simple lyric like a sharp weapon, and capable of connecting to a broad spectrum of listeners: Earle has become the social conscience of roots music lovers everywhere.

Patricia O’Callaghan – Matador: The Songs of Leonard Cohen: O’Callaghan is a Toronto-based, classically trained vocalist whose considerable skills are typically brought to bear on interpreting other people’s songs. On this record, she focuses entirely on Leonard Cohen songs—music, I’ve often thought, that benefits from being performed by people who are not Leonard Cohen. O’Callaghan’s performances (one or two of which have been previously released) are so assured, so incredibly well worked out, her phrasing so spot-on, the arrangements so good, they stake a reasonable claim for being better than the originals. Her version of ‘Who By Fire’ is astonishing, her ‘Hallelujah’ impeccable and her ‘Everybody Knows’ is clean and—without Cohen’s grit—takes on a different inflection entirely that’s just as good as the original. Highly recommended. I’ve also enjoyed Patricia O’Callaghan’s album with the Gryphon Trio from earlier this year, Broken Hearts & Madmen. It’s perhaps not completely worthy of a “best of 2011″ mention (or maybe I just think there are too many songs sung in Spanish on it), but it’s also outstanding and more than deserves to be heard. I love its version of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Pieces and Parts.’

Best new classical music

Eric Whitacre – Light & Gold: Eric Whitacre is a young American composer of mostly choral music. He has, in recent years, built himself quite a reputation on Youtube (virtual choirs and the like), and his last two records genuinely ‘crossed over’ into the outer layers of the mainstream. My inclusion of this album as a “best of 2011″ pick feels slightly tentative because I can’t entirely shake the sense that there’s something ever-so-slightly cheesy populist about some of Mr. Whitacre’s pieces… or maybe, I find myself reacting to the unbridled enthusiasm with which he’s embraced by all sorts of listeners who otherwise don’t know classical music from a bar of soap. His crossover ‘pop’ status puts him in close proximity (at least physically, in music stores) to the Susan Boyles and Andrea Bocellis of this world. Yet his music is often astonishingly beautiful, interesting and deserves a serious audience.

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz – Mendelssohn Piano Concertos: Mendelssohn’s early piano concertos are delightful confections of “Early Romanticism,” all pretty melodies and a string orchestra. Pre-Sturm und Drang, this reflects much of Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel’s technical advancements without yet carrying the weight of Romanticism. Bezuidenhout, who’s from South Africa, plays the fortepiano, a predecessor of the piano we know today, whose character is brighter, nimbler—but also more brittle and less ‘full’ than your Steinways and Bösendorfers. It works beautifully here (whereas I struggle with some of the piano solo material when it’s played on a fortepiano). The Freiburg Baroque orchestra does a lovely job. This is an immensely listenable release that continues to delight time and again.

The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Stephen Layton – Beyond all mortal dreams: American a cappella: This is a panoramic traversal of some very fine American choral music, exceptionally sung by one of Britain’s foremost choirs. All of this material is form the 20th century, but is about as far from serial music or other modernist art musics as one can imagine. Though harmonically advanced and interesting, this isn’t dissonant music. While it can sometimes be quiet, the recording’s dynamics demand your attention (this isn’t ‘casual listening music’). I hear connections between this and Arvo Pärt—much of it comes from within a distinctly religious tradition. If you’re looking for introspection and a wonderful showcase of the fine harmony human voices can produce, look no further than this.

Stephen Hough – Chopin Complete Waltzes: Stephen Hough, it strikes me, is one of the few pianists who seem to have absolutely no technical limitations. Like Marc-André Hamelin (the other pianist in the small group that immediately springs to mind), Hough appears able to focus all his energy on interpretation—on providing us with musical insights into the work. I say “appears” because I know that much of the dynamics of performance spring from “doing battle with” one’s own technical limitations, and I’m also aware that suggesting someone doesn’t have technical limitations implies that their performances would be particularly light (or that they don’t need to practice). Neither applies here or is in any way an issue (and Chopin’s waltzes certainly deserve a certain lightness of touch). This is a beautiful record—just like everything else I’ve ever heard Hough play. I would say these are definitive performances.

Heinz Holliger, Camerata Bern, Erich Höbarth – Bach Oboe Concertos: A lovely collection of well-played, well-recorded Bach concertos and sinfonias rendered for oboe and Baroque orchestra. Heinz Holliger’s research really shines here, rendering what are more often performed as works for the violin on the oboe (a legitimate transcription, and sometimes performed like that in Bach’s time), and surrounding them with sinfonias/chorale transcriptions to give them a longer arch, better shape and create a program that flows better. If you’re looking for one instrumental Baroque disc this year, this should probably be it. (Although I feel like I could have a whole separate post on “best Baroque recordings of the year.”)

Jean-Guihen Queyras, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Vivaldi Cello Concertos: Queyras is a young French cellist whose tone is more like that of a dark viola d’amore than a cello, and he has the same lightness that someone playing a handheld instrument could achieve. I was first drawn in by his remarkable Bach Cello suites a few years ago which showcased his dexterity, lightness of touch and depth of thinking about Baroque music. Performing Vivaldi may not require the same erudition as Bach’s solo works, but these works are rendered flawlessly (even if the recording has the tiniest bit too much treble). There are also some sinfonias here by Caldara, providing a bit of balance and welcome diversion between the three-movement sets of the concertos. The Akademie plays true to its usual fiery self.

Joyce DiDonato, Karina Gauvin et. al, Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis – Handel Ariodante: This is hands down the best new opera recording of the year for me. Alan Curtis has been rendering Handel operas with his hand-picked European orchestra and an ever-more-amazing roster of singers for many years. This recording now also includes the incredible new Baroque mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato who sings this music so flawlessly that one might imagine it was written for her. What makes this even more special, though, is that every singer here is equally accomplished—so the whole enterprise never sags, drags or lags. Even if you think you don’t like opera, this may be good enough to get you into it. Handel wrote the pop songs of his era, staged with as much fanfare as a Lady Gaga appearance, and this album renders them terrifically.

Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff – Schumann Complete Works for Piano Trio: The Tetzlaffs and Andsnes have established a kind of new European chamber supergroup through a few years of collaborating at Lars Vogt’s Spannungen chamber festival in Heimbach, Germany. Christian Tetzlaff, of course, is one of the current violin greats playing on modern instruments, equally at home in this repertoire as in Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The close ensemble work here is an expression of the three musicians’ finely honed listening skills, high musicianship and excellent preparation. I don’t feel equipped to say that these are definitive recordings (I love the Florestan Trio, too), but it’s an amazing complete compendium of Schumann trio music and consistently of an excellent standard. If you don’t know Schumann’s chamber music, you ought to hear this.

Alina Ibragimova, Cédric Tiberghien – Beethoven Violin Sonatas Vol. 3: The final volume in Alina Ibragimova’s Beethoven sonata cycle, this deserves being included in this year’s best of list: the whole cycle, which appeared on three discs over the course of the last few years, is the result of a series of very well received live recordings at Wigmore Hall. I had my heart set on not liking this as much as the Isabelle Faust/Alexander Melnikov Beethoven sonata cycle from a couple of years ago (which I thought was unbeatable), but Ibragimova and Tiberghien convinced me piece by piece. It is especially remarkable that these are live recordings; the consistent perfection delivered by these two young musicians is simply amazing. Ibragimova is rapidly becoming the new violinist to watch.

Honorary Mention

Adam Gopnik – Winter: Five Windows on the Season (CBC Massey Lectures 2011): Honorary mention goes to Adam Gopnik’s 2011 Massey Lectures which are a delight in terms of both content and delivery. In five one-hour lectures, Gopnik takes us on a whirlwind tour to explore how one might think about the ‘meaning of winter’ from various cultural and historical perspectives. He covers everything from Scrooge to fighting in hockey, arctic explorers to skating as courtship, and the intellectual enjoyment of it never lets up (if anything, he can be a bit of a fast-talker and I occasionally found myself struggling to keep up and had to go back). The book, which appeared before the audio lectures were broadcast on the CBC, is much longer and more detailed. If you want to learn something this season, try these.

An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

One of the reasons I think people without much exposure to classical music think they don’t like it or can’t relate to it is because they have artificially reduced the genre to orchestral music.

The most immediate sonic linkage for the non-initiated is film music: since the early days of the ‘talkies,’ we’ve been acclimated to a certain late romantic, big orchestral sound to underscore key moments in the cinema. The sound of 1940s, 50s and 60s cinema is best explained by the War in Europe and its associated wave of emigration to North America: a disproportionate number of film composers were European musicians who studied under Mahler and his disciples and fled their home continent in the 30s and 40s. They wrote what they knew: late romantic music. By unconscious association (or maybe downright transference), we have internalized this sound as the sonic imprint of ‘classical music,’ and now when we hear orchestral Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms, we recognize it and react to it.

Unfortunately, this misdirected connection taints much of (orchestral) classical music with arbitrary (moving) pictures which we may or may not have liked; called up out of context when we encounter the music outside of the film, we cannot help but remember the ‘music video’: the emotions it meant to conjure in that moment, the specific juncture in the plot line, our own preoccupations and memories attached to the movie-going experience.

Classical music, of course, is so infinitely much more than merely its ‘big,’ well-known orchestral or operatic works. There’s a whole world beyond conductors, symphony orchestras and divas.

Chamber music – through-composed music played by small ensembles without a conductor – opens up a whole world of listening pleasure. Regardless of its period of origin (the Baroque, High Classicism, the Romantic era or the 20^th and 21^st centuries), chamber music offers a number of key features that I believe would be very attractive to modern listeners for a variety of reasons.

Intimate scale – music for friends

Composers wrote chamber music for many purposes, but the two primary ones are key to understanding and appreciating it: to perform for and with friends in intimate settings (the home, the salon); and for pedagogical purposes.

In this way, chamber music is designed to speak to us immediately. Ideally, it should be experienced right in front of us and not in a concert hall 100 feet away from the stage. As recording and audio reproduction technology has become better, it’s now quite possible to ‘experience’ a chamber music performance closely – in one’s living room or headphones – close-miked, dynamic, impactful and present. Your ears, at least, can be sitting amongst the musicians anytime.

I like to imagine that many composers reserved their most important artistic work for chamber music because they knew that the intimate setting of the performance would promote a positive reception by an audience of initiates (their friends, peers and rivals).

Imagining an intimate scale – and picturing yourself close to the musicians so that you can not only hear them but see them and experience all the other sensations generated by their playing – certainly sets the stage for thinking about the connection between the human body and music-making.

Making music with the body, playing on a human scale

In chamber music – especially if it’s experienced live or well-recorded – we can hear how the human body is ‘instrumental’ in making music. No electronically generated sounds can be heard; nothing that is stored and triggered by means of a device that’s between the body and the instrument; nothing dissociated or technologically enhanced.

We can hear the human breath inhaling and exhaling; the rustle of clothing a tiny split-second before the beginning of a movement revealing the ‘synching up’ of the ensemble; the occasional thump of feet hitting the ground during a downbeat in a particularly intense or difficult passage. Some musicians (often pianists) can be heard humming along with the music they are playing (Alfred Brendel did this, for instance; notably, so does Keith Jarrett – but only when he plays jazz or improvisations, not in classical music).

Good modern chamber music recordings also showcase the grain of the instruments (particularly strings and winds): there’s a certain fragility, an impermanence, but also a distinct power and authority in running a bow over a violin’s strings (whether steel or gut). A piano in chamber music is so much more than 88 keys, strings and hammers: recordings frequently reveal the slight whoosh of the pedals being released, or the click of the pianist’s fingernails hitting the key a fraction of a second before the note sounds.

The interplay between this texture of the different instruments, which is quite separate from their pitch/register, is a very attractive feature of chamber music and reminds us of the human-constructed nature of the instruments being played, and the body parts involved in making music on them.

Chamber music, therefore, paints a sonic picture that should be easy to connect to because of its lack of artifice, its directness and naturalness, its relative smallness, its human scale.

I think those more accustomed to rock music can easily experience these pleasures by turning to other acoustic music, like bluegrass or folk, for many of the same reasons. There’s something important, primal and connecting about hearing highly skilled humans making music by operating instruments without any (undue, electronic) mediation – and hearing them make music together.

The difference with chamber music is that it’s written down and therefore ‘reproduced’ and not improvised or learned through folklore and oral tradition, as folk and bluegrass are.

Interpretation

The key to appreciating chamber music (all classical performance, really) is to recognize that every performance is an interpretation, and that what differentiates truly skilled artists is their ability to say something new and unique about the piece, even within the (apparently) strict confines of the written notes which – with the exception of a few optional repeats – may not be changed at all.

As a result, the scope for interpretation is subtle. But it’s by no means too subtle to hear or understand even when you’re unfamiliar with the written notes, particularly when you have the opportunity to hear different performances of the same piece next to each other (something our magnificent digital age increasingly makes possible).

Whether you like an interpretation or not is ultimately your choice; despite all the websites, books and classical music magazines I read, I find that I am still frequently unable to articulate clearly what I like about a performance. I do find that I have strong reactions, though; I know – often on first listen – whether the performance captured by a recording is a ‘keeper’ or not.

The parameters defining an interpretation that I think I can successfully detect most often are:

• Tempo
• Rhythmic coherence and drive
• Clarity of ‘articulation’ between notes, melody lines/themes, instruments
• Whether the performance communicates the overall architecture of the piece – does it congeal into something coherent and meaningful when I listen?
• How well rehearsed the chamber group appears to be and whether there is a certain sympathy between them – are they listening to each other and reacting to what they’re hearing? Are they adjusting to each other’s cues?

Listening and collaboration

For me, the key artistic achievement underscored by every good chamber music performance or recording I’ve heard is our human ability to collaborate by closely listening to others and adjusting what we are doing in response to what they are doing.

This is amplified by the narrow confines of the interpretive play in classical music: since both the overall shape of the work and the specific notes are ‘locked up’ in a manner of speaking, the group’s achievement lies in adjusting interpretive parameters that are very subtle and – to the casual listener – possibly quite hard to detect.

Often, of course, there is a ‘leader’ in the ensemble who may set the musical direction of a performance. But in the heat of the performance – and given the everything-laid-bare nature of a small group of musicians playing together at equal volume – even the leader has to trust in the group’s ability to listen, adjust and collaborate.

I particularly love the intense listening and collaboration required for accurately playing quiet ending chords together, often heard in slow movements: when the ensemble nails the pianissimo chord after a short pause in the music, it’s a breathtaking effect and a gorgeous reminder of how we humans are capable of genuinely paying attention to one another in a specific moment and not letting anything else interfere.

Together, chamber musicians regularly achieve something truly remarkable and enjoyable. I suspect we can learn much from this that applies equally in the worlds of business, politics and relationships.

Three recommended recordings:

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Or get the last one digitally, online at Hyperion Records.

What’s left now is L’Atelier Grigorian, a small specialist classical and jazz CD store (very well curated but unfortunately expensive), HMV’s flagship store on Yonge Street (whose classical department upstairs focuses more and more on Naxos, Brilliant and other budget releases), and the classical sections in stores like Soundscapes (whose classical buyer is either myopic or schizophrenic, or both; it appears that only a small selection from mostly major labels gets brought in – surprising in a store that is so ‘indie’ in all other genres). There are classical departments in an ever-shrinking number of second hand CD stores in Toronto but they’re typically not really worth visiting.

Naturally, my eye has drifted online. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and its various independent sellers have generally been a good, speedy – and cheap source. ArkivMusic (with its very useful catalogue containing syndicated reviews from Fanfare and other premium online review sources) is also very good (though pricier on average, and shipping can take a while).

One of the more exciting options these days is buying music digitally. While I remain deeply skeptical about iTunes (or anything that comes in a low-ish quality and with DRM), there is now an increasing number of credible and accomplished indie labels selling high-resolution digital files directly. In some cases, these are actually higher-resolution than a CD – up to actual studio master quality (SACD resolution or better). Even though I don’t have equipment that would easily allow me to play back high res audio files like that, it’s exciting to imagine that – as computer-based audio becomes cheaper and less niche-y – it’ll be possible one day to fully enjoy a studio quality master at home.

First up in the classical digital download offerings has to be Linn Records. Founded as an off-shoot of the Scottish high-end stereo manufacturer in the early 80s, Linn Records is a boutique audiophile label that is slowly emerging with a limited but excellent catalogue of classical recordings (as well as forays into jazz and singer/songwriter material). I’m a big fan of some of Linn’s Baroque releases, such as the truly outstanding and unanimously well-reviewed Bach Mass in B minor by the Dunedin Consort, a Scottish group that performs this work with one-to-a-part voicings (only one singer for every voice in the choral parts – this has the distinct advantage of showing off Bach’s intricate part-writing and illuminates the music’s overall architecture).

Other Linn releases I love are by various other Scottish Baroque players, many of whom have made big names for themselves in their various specialties since (and, sadly, moved on from Linn Records as a result). Particularly wonderful recordings are by the Palladian Ensemble (featuring the wonderful Rachel Podger, my favourite Baroque violinist) and by Pamela Thorby (who plays the recorder). Thorby’s Garden of Early Delights, performed together with Andrew Lawrence-King on harp and psaltery, is one of the loveliest selections of early Baroque music I’ve heard, beautifully played and recorded with an immense clarity, resonance and a width of sound stage second to none.

In fact, the audio quality of Linn’s work – there’s an interview with Linn’s chief producer/engineer, Calum Malcolm, here – is outstanding on every release. I’ve now bought and downloaded 320 kbps MP3 versions of a number of releases, and everything is breathtakingly well recorded.

Linn offers its own Adobe Air based download manager application, which works very well. The only complaint I have is about the somewhat awkwardly done digital booklets (they are PDFs of the print versions, so the pages are out of order in the PDF) and poor MP3 metadata. This latter issue is somewhat inexcusable for a download store – and while I understand that my 320 kbps MP3s are at the low end of Linn’s offerings and price point, there really is no reason why I should have to spend 10 minutes after every download importing and re-working the metadata in iTunes to ensure that it’s complete and accurate.

Another excellent digital music seller is Hyperion Records. Hyperion is primarily known for its outstanding efforts in chamber music, Lieder and the pre-classical repertoire. Its greatest claim to fame so far is probably the complete edition of Schubert Lieder (something I aim to own – and listen to – one of these years…).

Hyperion offers digital downloads either as VBR MP3s (targeting 320 kpbs) or FLAC (FLAC is generally emerging as the audiophile download format of choice – I grab FLAC where I can for archiving and down-convert to 320 kbps MP3s for the time being, in the interest of portability).

I’ve bought several excellent digital selections from Hyperion Records. Particularly enjoyable have been releases by Stephen Hough, an English pianist whom I admire greatly (and who also has an always intriguing and occasionally amusing Twitter presence). His Mozart Album is a wildly successful recital of Mozart and Mozart-inspired music, and I highly recommend it. I’ve also grabbed two very special Rossini releases – the Soirées musicales song cycle and an otherwise out-of-print edition of the String Sonatas in their original chamber version played by Elizabeth Wallfisch and ensemble.

Downloading from Hyperion is less convenient than Linn Records because Hyperion doesn’t offer a download manager (it references a few on its website, but alas – I use Google Chrome and none of the Firefox plugins support my browser) so you have to actually download each file separately. On the plus side, though, Hyperion’s metadata-labeling is superb and I have no completeness or accuracy concerns to report.

As I build my classical library, lingering doubts remain after every digital-only purchase. “If only I had bought the CD instead. What if MP3 or FLAC aren’t the last word yet for digital audio? If I owned the CD, at least I could re-rip it at a future date into whatever format will then be de rigueur.”

For right now, convenience wins out. 320 kpbs MP3s sound quite wonderful to my ears on most equipment (barring, perhaps, my main stereo in the living room, where they sound merely somewhat above acceptable but lack the fullness and depth of my CD player), and their portability-to-audiophile-to-economy ratio on a 160GB latest generation iPod is quite excellent (especially with one of these line-out iPod dock cables for the car).

There are other classical digital download options. Notably, Deutsche Grammophon offers some 3,500 of its releases, as well as some of the Decca catalogue (both now owned by Universal Music) as 320 kbps MP3 downloads. I haven’t tried this yet, but at first glance, the online catalogue seems somewhat confusing (you can always trust the corporate behemoth to create the dodgiest e-commerce offering). I was a little sad to see that the DG website doesn’t offer all of the newly merged Universal classical labels – I would have liked to be able to access the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi catalogue in this way, as it contains many gems I’d like to get my hands on digitally. Finally, I’m keen to see whether Harmonia Mundi itself, the fantastic French indie classical label, has digital sales plans of its own. Now that would be something…

These two videos explain the process and are an interesting micro-documentary.

Part one:

Part two:

The CD is also entirely worth owning, even if it is a little expensive:

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Two perfect McFerrin videos: the first one has him singing the Bach part while the Montreal audience sings the Gounod bits of the famous ‘Ave Maria.’

The second one is together with Yo-Yo Ma, apparently on Japanese television. This is probably the best version of ‘Hush Little Baby’ you’ll ever hear.

The second performance is an extension of this brilliant McFerrin/Ma collaboration:

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Hush is quite unlike anything else you’ll ever hear. I highly recommend it. It’ll make you feel the wonder you felt as a kid when you first heard certain kinds of music.

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This is a beautiful performance of Mozart’s 20th and 18th piano concertos, one of those records that changed my perception of how Mozart concertos could be played. I had grown up listening to Barenboim and Gulda playing these works (my mom’s record collection), and this is entirely in a different league. Well, ‘different league’ makes it sounds as if it somehow invalidates the other, older versions. That’s not really it. But the playing and recording quality are delightfully superior in this modern version. Goode, an American pianist, plays these concertos energetically, and with a very Viennese ‘lightness’ that seems wholly appropriate to the material. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the famous ‘conductor-less’ group from New York, seems an ideal pairing for this material. I love their complete Mozart Wind Concertos, and this seems to confirm their knack for Mozart concertos. I believe this disc could get anyone excited about Mozart’s piano works. Maybe that’s a bit of wishful thinking, but do give it a try :)

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This is romantic piano music of the highest order: Chopin’s Nocturnes should have a place in every record collection. Perhaps the finest example of virtuoso classical piano composition, this is deeply involving and emotional material. Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt brings out the bel canto aspects of this music beautifully, and the audio quality is first class. I prefer Hewitt’s playing to other versions I’ve heard (Pollini, for example) whose intensity and sheer sound volume can conceal the fine textures of Chopin’s night-time pieces for me.

I had only recently discovered Oliver’s music and blogged about it at length. Sensitive obits from TheStar.com here and here.

The medieval concept and practice of pilgrimages stretching over months or even years – to Jerusalem, Rome or Santiago de Compostela – sits uneasily with today’s package tours and motorised travel. For the original pilgrims, though the destination (both physical and metaphysical) was important, the journey was the thing, with all its physical hardships, the hazards along the way and the shared experience, occasionally violent but mostly convivial. Today there are less onerous, probably safer and certainly faster ways to visit the magnificent abbeys, priories and cathedrals that criss-cross southern France and punctuate the various routes through northern Spain. Yet something is missed if we are accorded only the briefest of glances before the tour guide summons us on to the next step in the itinerary. Medieval men and women had the time to become absorbed, the capacity to be enraptured. (John Eliot Gardiner, from the sleeve notes to Pilgrimage to Santiago)

There’s been a slew of recordings in the last few years from musicians making the pilgrimage (the ‘Way of St. James‘) to Santiago de Compostela, a city in Spain where the remains of St. James are said to be kept. This medieval pilgrimage of potentially 1,000km or more has been made for more than 1,000 years from various originating points across Europe. Pilgrims typically walk; many cycle and a few ride on animals.

John Eliot Gardiner, renowned British conductor of choral music, and his Monteverdi Choir, undertook to walk the camino and sing in many of the churches and cathedrals along the way. These performances of 12th century choral music were recorded and released as Pilgrimage to Santiago.

In 2004, Canadian violinist/fiddler Oliver Schroer chose to walk 1,000km of the camino through France and Spain with his wife and two friends. He carried his violin in his backpack, wrapped in socks and underwear (as described in the sleeve notes (PDF), which are great). Over the course of two months, Schroer recorded himself playing beautiful improvised music in 25 different churches and cathedrals, using a Sony DAT recorder.

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The result is Camino, one of the most intriguing and beautiful records I’ve heard in recent years. For me, the comparisons are the solo violin architecture of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the improvised classical/jazz fusion of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, or even Keith Jarrett‘s solo improvisations. The music is of the same ethereal quality. While it seems that Schroer’s more often associated with playing a slightly left-of-centre version of Canadian ‘Celtic’ fiddle music, there are only limited traces of that in this work. His 5-string violin soars and sings, establishes musical structures involving counterpoint and other ‘baroque’ devices, and inhabits a sonic space that can only be described as ‘classical.’ There are pieces, such as ‘The Garden of Birds and Flowers,’ where a Celtic fiddle/bluegrass sensibility comes a little more into the foreground. But it’s always tempered by what I can only call ‘the opposite of Celtic fiddle music’: the naturally beautiful acoustics of the churches put this music firmly in a spiritual light – there’s none of the rhythmic, foot-stomping, dance music intensity (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) of Ontario fiddle music.

And then I stumbled on another kind of tune. What I call the fractal tune. The material that became O2 and Camino. It had a very different quality to it. It was less of an entertainment, and more of a sacrament. This was music that came to me from a different place. Very deep, unexpected, inexplicable and spiritual. Talk of keeping me amused. It had progressed beyond amusement into spiritual practice for me. And getting back to the search for meaning, there was a lot of meaning in this music. It connected with people, it connected with soul, it expressed something profound for myself and apparently for others. It was a mystery, and a beautiful mystery at that. So that, for what it’s worth, is a bit of the story of my musical journey thus far.

Schroer’s camino music is an interesting hands-on illustration of how closely related ‘old’ music and ‘folk’ music really is. Ultimately, the similarity between Bach’s rigorous partitas and Schroer’s spirited improvisations are a matter of what informed them. Both require incredible technique, focus and musical invention. The fact that Schroer’s compositions were not written down (at least I assume they weren’t, even though his liner notes indicate that some pieces are ‘recycled’ from past projects) is actually the least significant point of difference. Going through some samples of Schroer’s earlier recorded work (http://www.oliverschroer.com), it feels as if the cathedral locations and the spiritual focus of walking a thousand kilometers in the footsteps of pilgrims have caused a shift – away from secular solo violin music (much of which already had the same technical elements as Camino) to playing music for the glory of God. (In a fitting parallel, Gardiner’s new independent record label is called Soli Deo Gloria – for God’s glory alone.) Even if Oliver Schroer notes on his website that his dialogue with God has been incomplete at best (not unlike my own, I think):

The meaning I was looking for I didn’t see or find meaning in religion either. Not that I didn’t see other people finding a lot of meaning and solace there. But somehow it was not cut out for me. And that is not to say that I didn’t have an ongoing dialogue with God my whole life long. I used to read the Bible in secret as a teenager. Always 17 verses a day. I’m not sure why. So I was not ill disposed toward religion. It’s just that I never found that oomph of certainty that other people seemed to get from it.

Camino is more than a violin solo recording. It’s also a clever audio document of the pilgrimage: every so often, there’s a short ambient track featuring the sounds of the trail. There are church bells, the sound of footsteps on a sandy path, voices of other pilgrims, cathedral doors. I initially thought this would be an unpleasant distraction from the music but I’ve since decided that these brief interludes are sort of like the pickled ginger when you’re eating sushi: they clear your head before the next beautiful morsel of music.

Schroer’s technique never ceases to amaze. I still remember being transfixed, as a child, by my parents’ old Yehudi Menuhin recordings of Bach’s partitas. I remember that I had previously thought of the violin as an instrument that was only capable of activating a single string at a time – I recall thinking that’s why you needed so many of them in an orchestra. Hearing the Bach sonatas and partitas jolted me out of that belief and helped me see the possibilities of coaxing harmonies from violins. Of course, Bach also opened my eyes to many other things. (And I once, during my university days, opened a guitar-player friend’s eyes to “where Deep Purple got all those guitar solos from” by introducing him to Bach’s sonatas and partitas – but that’s another story entirely…).

Oliver Schroer combines elements of classical technique with controlled harmonics (which are only enhanced by the suberb natural reverb of the Spanish cathedral acoustics), subtly ‘Celtic’ harmonies and rhythms, and a meditative, circular way of arranging his melodies – the 8-minute opener, ‘Field of Stars,’ doesn’t seem long at all. If anything, you experience a sudden longing for more once it’s over.

The recording quality also deserves commentary. It’s nothing short of remarkable what can be done with a single Audiotechnica stereo microphone and a Sony DAT recorder. This is the sort of recording that’ll make you want to get out the good headphones, or finally upgrade your stereo. I would say it’s as close to impeccable as recording a solo violin can get in a natural recording space. And it’s especially remarkable that it was made by Oliver himself without any assistance from a professional recording engineer. Even if it didn’t contain some of the most extraordinary improvised music you’ll ever hear, this record would be worth hearing for its acoustics alone.

Oliver Schroer has been diagnosed with leukemia and appears to have spent the last two years in and out of various Toronto hospitals undergoing chemotherapy. His website’s ‘Leukemia‘ section has all the details and his thoughts on this weighty subject. Suffice it to say that I hope his treatments are successful and that we’ll have Oliver Schroer around for many, many more years.

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I came late to this work (in life, as I’d like to discuss here… and yes, I know it’s about a month after Christmas now). I remember my mom loving it and playing it to mark the season when I was growing up, but I always thought the passions were too much like opera, another genre I came to late (and, in the case of opera, very incompletely). I grew up in a household that deeply valued Baroque music, so the Bach family, Händel, Vivaldi and Corelli, even Buxtehude, Telemann and Biber were names and sounds that were familiar to me from a young age. My parents had a large record collection, and I loved sticking my nose into the beautifully printed German liner notes, replete with pictures, lyrics, translations and descriptions of the works, composers and times.

What I did like about the oratorios were the chorales, choruses and arias; what I really struggled with were the recitatives. I imagine most kids would find those frustrating and pointless. (Well, I’m still not sure I actually like them :) I also thought Bach’s passions were very long (in the days of slower, more ‘classicist’ performances and LP records, they could easily fill 4-6 complete records, so that’s how many flips/changes… let’s see…). For a German child growing up in a Lutheran tradition, the chorales were mostly easily recognizable: our hymn books in church were full of them. Admittedly, this is a privilege few, if any, other churches have – many of our common liturgical hymns were written by composers like Bach or Buxtehude; their lyrics often written by Luther or other great poetic masters of the early standardized German language of the 16th and 17th centuries.

I learned about period performance relatively early. I think my mom’s active interest in Baroque music led her to discover early practitioners like Nikolaus Harnoncourt from Austria and Sir Neville Marriner from the UK. And, though the debate then ranged quite far, both in academic and enthusiast circles, I think that anyone with a good pair of ears must have known even back then that period performance was reviving these works, breathing new life into them. When I was old enough to buy my own CDs, whatever classical music I acquired was purchased according to the “buy it once only, and buy the best performance available at that time” principle, coupled closely to a strong preference for period performances. It’s worked very well for me. And Harnoncourt has been a fascinating conductor to follow: from Bach to Beethoven to Schubert to Brahms (great Brahms) to Dvorák back to Bach. I’d have lots to say about each of these.

What I like about this new Weihnachtsoratorium is often related to language. I think the fact that the soloists and choir members are, for the most part, German-speaking, makes such a tremendous difference to the recording of these works. They are, after all, re-tellings of various New Testament narratives, and so benefit from accent-free, native singers. I also enjoy, I should say, recordings by others – Masaaki Suzuki, for example, and his Japanese choir, and of course John Eliot Gardiner, whose Bach recordings I enjoy for hundreds of reasons (and yet language isn’t often one of them). The native singers combine well with Harnoncourt’s beautifully shaped melodies in the arias and choruses. Particularly in the arias, the lyrics and music really merge – often for the first time in my own listening history – into complete ‘songs,’ songs that I can follow and whose meaning I can take in as I listen, without my eyes being glued to a lyric sheet of Baroque era German while I try to follow the music.

In the end, there’s something about how Harnoncourt thinks about this music and shapes it when conducting that makes his passions, in my opinion, superior to most others I’ve heard. There’s something deeply, immensely satisfying about it and I’m not sure I have appropriate words for it.

I only read Harnoncourt’s Baroque Music Today: Music as Speech a few years ago and remember being struck by the insights and learning a lot. The liner notes here are a little thin, at least in the edition I have, which seems to be a North American ‘cheap’ edition of the CD (I saw one in Germany whose booklet was several times the size so I’m assuming I have a budget version). But they’re thoughtful and insightful nonetheless and shed more light on the complexities of determining how Bach would have wanted these pieces performed from copies of the score and various musician parts (written out by copyists under Bach’s supervision).