Frank Horvat’s Banff Suite is a series of piano pieces inspired by hiking the trails around Banff. Full review at La Scena Musicale.
Banff Suite
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More Rivers
More Rivers is a CD of piano music by Frank Horvat played by Christina Petrowska Quilico. It’s a sort of sequel to Rivers a record of music by Ann Southam, released on Centrediscs in 2005. It’s a set of seven pieces of various lengths. “More Rvers 1 – for Ann” is the last piece on the album but it’s the longest piece of the set and sets up in various ways the others. The music is a kind of looping minimalism but with quite a lot of harmonic complexity. Different rhythms and speeds are encountered. As Frank says in the notes “some rivers are long, some are short, some have rapids, and some have calm water”. But all but the most benighted rivers flow and these pieces evoke natural streams; clean, pure and life giving. Played with great virtuosity, discipline and control by Christina it’s a very pleasant way to spend 65 minutes. Continue reading
Fracking things up
Frank Horvat’s Fractures is a very interesting new CD. It sets eleven texts for soprano and piano on the themes of fracking, environmental degradation and climate change. It’s a tough listen; not because it’s preachy or hard on the ear but rather because there is a degree of irony in the texts, the music and the performance that somehow makes the situations described even more horrible.
There’s a Faustian quality to the texts in the sense that we all (or at least most of us) go on doing the things we do even though we know, long term, it’s indefensible and we, or our children, will pay for it. And that’s true whether we drive an SUV or work for an oil company or lease our farm to a fracking company. Or for that matter fail to address fossil fuel development for fear of losing votes and tax revenues.
On-line roundup
Ontario’s state of emergency seems to have slowed the production of on-line content to a trickle. The only new things I’ve seen recently are from the ever reliable Opera Revue and Alexander Hajek.
Opera Revue’s eighth isolation production features five pieces from Frank Horvat’s Music for Self Isolation; a set of thirty one short pieces for one or two musicians written last spring. The concert features the five pieces with a vocal part. I have to say I liked the texts; taken from various sources, more than the music. The music is sort of “singer sonwriterish”; simple, tonal, melodic, a bit repetitive. It’s fine of its type but it’s not my bag. Performances by various combos of sopranos Emily Ding and Dani Friesen, pianist Claire Harris and guitarist Michael McKenzie are very nice though and the recording; despite being done via Zoom, is perfectly acceptable. The music may not be entirely my thing but I’m delighted that someone is doing projects like this. You can find it on Opera Revue’s channel on Youtube.
Alex Hajek’s contribution is another intriguing Toronto based film this time featuring Der Doppelgänger from Scubert’s Schwanengesang. It’s beautiful to look at and beautiful to listen to and, again, featurers Claire Harris on piano as well as Alex’ lovely baritone. This one’s on Youtube too. The channel is Alexander Hajek.
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