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CD Review | i love evil, Dory Hayley, Red Shift Records

By John Gilks on 7 October 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music

i love evil Dory Hayley, soprano Red Shift Records, 2025 i love evil is a two-CD set of recordings. The first CD contains Morton Feldman’s monumental Three Voices. This is a 67-minute work for soprano with the same singer, Dory Hayley, interacting live with two recordings of herself performing other parts of the same piece. The second CD contains four shorter pieces by contemporary composers inspired by Feldman and using the same forces—i.e. Hayley x 3. Three Voices spins out the text “Who’d have thought that snow falls/snow whirled nothing ever fell,” or fragments of it, for more than an…

CD Review | Banff Suite, Frank Horvat; Vicky Chow

By John Gilks on 7 October 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Horvat: Banff Suite Vicky Chow, piano Redshift Records, 2025 Frank Horvat’s Banff Suite is a set of eight pieces for solo piano composed during a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in the fall of 2021. Each of the eight pieces is inspired by a hiking trail he and his wife used during that stay. The music vividly reflects the varied nature of the hikes, from the lung-wrenching switchbacks of Sulphur Mountain to the tranquility of Bow River. I particularly liked Johnston Canyon, perhaps because I have hiked that trail. It’s a longish piece and I felt…

CD Review | Alice Ho Dark Tales, Duo Concertante

By John Gilks on 6 October 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Ho: Dark Tales Duo Concertante Navona Records, 2025 Alice Ho’s Dark Tales is a set of five pieces for violin and piano, each based on a Newfoundland ghost story from poet Tom Dawe’s story collection An Old Man’s Winter Night. They are played on the recording by Duo Concertante—Nancy Dahn (violin) and Timothy Steeves (piano). Programmatic instrumental music is a bit of a strange beast because it can’t really tell a story. It can evoke mood though, and Dark Tales does that very effectively. Without a liner note, would I be able to tell that the second piece—“Landwash Spirits”—was about…

CD Review | Amy Beach Children’s Carnival, Jeremy VanSlyke

By Heather Weinreb on 6 October 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Beach: Children’s Carnival, Op. 25 Jeremy VanSlyke, piano Leaf Music, 2025 Amy Beach’s Children’s Carnival is a series of six short piano pieces for children, each depicting a stock character or dramatic element from European pantomime. From the mischievously meandering melodies of Promenade to the lilting arpeggios of Secrets, each piece charmingly evokes its title. European pantomime has its roots in Italian commedia dell’arte—a caricatural art form centred around humour and entertainment. Beach’s pieces call to mind the great pantomime master Charlie Chaplin. Like Chaplin’s sketches, her compositions are formally simple, yet full of playful twists and turns. Unfussy, delightful,…

CD Review | My Voice: Harp Concerti, Teresa Suen-Campbell

By Justin Bernard on 8 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

My Voice: Harp Concerti Teresa Suen-Campbell, harp; Sinfonia Toronto; Nurhan Arman, conductor Navona Records, 2025 The harp is often regarded as a mere frill within an orchestra, but there’s a whole repertoire for solo harp spanning centuries and continents. This, in part, is what Teresa Suen-Campbell sets out to demonstrate in her newest recording on Navona Records. The Chinese-born Canadian starts off with Handel’s Concerto in B-flat major. She brings out the acoustic qualities of the harp with a fluidity that matches the pastoral feel of the work. The watery effect owes much to the quality of the recording. Particularly…

CD Review | Mozart String Duos, Cosbey, Bandy

By Justin Bernard on 8 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Mozart String Duos Catherine Cosbey, violin; Dorian Komanoff Bandy, violin and viola Leaf Music, 2025 We don’t often have the chance to hear Mozart in his most intimate arrangements, especially for two instruments. Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy have, however, given us this opportunity with their new recording on Leaf Music. In Mozart’s time, players were in the habit of adding their own ornaments, especially in cadenzas and da capo sections. It’s an art that Cosbey, on violin, and Komanoff Bandy, on violin and viola, have exploited to the fullest extent on this album. There’s a lovely cohesion between…

CD Review | Górecki’s World of the Piano, Dunn, Górecka

By Meg Freer on 5 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Górecki’s World of the Piano Jarred Dunn, Anna Górecka, piano ATMA Classique, 2025 This new recording by Canadian pianist Jarred Dunn and Polish pianist Anna Górecka features the complete works for solo piano and two pianos by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010). Listeners more familiar with Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) will discover a more dissonant and austere soundscape. A variety pack of works composed from 1955 through 2008, the album features sets of miniatures and pieces written for specific people or occasions. These showcase Górecki’s love of the piano and the variety of sounds it is capable…

DVD Review | Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

By John Gilks on 4 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould Colm Feore (Glenn Gould); François Girard (director and screenplay), Niv Fichman (producer), Don McKellar (screenplay) The Criterion Collection, New 4K digital restoration, 2025 François Girard’s 1993 movie, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, is perhaps more talked-about than watched these days. It’s an iconic Canadian film about a Canadian musical icon that’s influenced filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino to the creators of The Simpsons. (There’s an episode of the latter called 22 Short Films About Springfield.) The film may be about to get a second lease on life with a sumptuous new video…

CD Review | Zéphyros Winds, Desert Pass

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Desert Pass Zéphyros Winds: Fatma Daglar, oboe and English horn; Jennifer Grim, flute and piccolo; Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet and bass clarinet; Saxton Rose, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn UNCSA Media, 2025 Released June 2025, Desert Pass features three contemporary classical works composed by Reena Esmail, Tyson Gholston Davis and David Sanford. With world-premiere recordings of Davis’s Desert Pass and Sanford’s Tatu, Zéphyros Winds showcases the diversity of the woodwind repertoire—how it can both soothe and provoke. The first piece, Esmail’s The Light is the Same, leads the listener from one section to the next with satisfying and pretty-sounding tones. This composition…

Alkan

Lebrecht Weekly | Alkan’s Early works: Mozartian with Added Chutzpah

By Norman Lebrecht on 13 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

There are four world premiere recordings on this utterly original disc, so if you have even a smidgeon of curiosity about the legend known as Alkan you will probably be buying this album before reading the next sentence. I’ll pause for a second to allow you to complete the purchase. Ready? Charles-Valentin Morhange, called Alkan for short, was the most prodigious French pianist that ever lived. Liszt was in awe of his powers and Chopin nominated him as the only musician capable of completing his unfinished etude. A sensitive Alsatian Jew, Alkan became a hermit after the Paris Conservatoire rejected…