Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal / Kent Nagano LEONARD BERNSTEIN A Quiet Place

Decca Classics and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal are proud to present the world premiere recording of the chamber version of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘A Quiet Place’, adapted by Garth Edwin Sunderland. It is conducted by Kent Nagano and will be released on 22^nd June, ahead of the Bernstein centenary on 25^th August 2018.
Premiered in 1983, Bernstein’s opera ‘A Quiet Place’ was the composer’s last work written for the stage and remains one of his lesser known large-scale compositions. The concert-version presented on the new album features a chamber orchestra and was recorded live at the Maison symphonique de Montréal in May 2017. Garth Edwin Sunderland’s adaptation offers a compact presentation of the three-act opera which places equal focus on librettist Stephen Wadsworth’s dramatic narrative and Bernstein’s complex and highly developed late musical style.
Kent Nagano was introduced to Bernstein by Seiji Ozawa in 1984 and studied with him until his death in 1990. Nagano says, “For Bernstein music was life – the two were synonymous, inseparable. He never stopped exploring and pushing his own compositional language. The goal in this particular adaptation is to allow the spirited brilliance and poetic depth of the work to shine through – including dance rhythms and elements of American folklore. Our hope is that the timeless and universal quality of the piece and the genius of the composition are laid bare in this new recording.”
Joining Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal on this new album is an outstanding group of young singers featuring soprano Claudia Boyle as Dede and tenor Joseph Kaiser as François. The cast also includes: baritones Gordon Bintner, Lucas Meachem and Daniel Belcher; tenors Rupert Charlesworth and John Tessier; mezzo-sopranos Annie Rosen and Maija Skille; and bass Steven Humes; as well as the OSM Chorus led by chorus master Andrew Megill.
‘A Quiet Place’ is an audacious musical-dramatic exploration of the changing face of American society. As Garth Edwin Sunderland, Senior Music Editor at the Leonard Bernstein Office, said of the composer’s late opera, “It’s such a brilliant work, the culmination of what he accomplished and the culmination of his gifts as a composer. Creating this adaptation was a deeply powerful experience for me, and it is my hope that it will provide audiences with a similar experience of this great American opera.”

Camilla Hoitenga / Da Camera of Houston KAIJA SAARIAHO Let the Wind Speak

"Let the Wind Speak" is as much an exploration of Kaija Saariaho’s flute writing as her long-time collaboration with soloist Camilla Hoitenga, who plays everything from piccolo to bass flute, vocalizing and executing multiphonics with organic ease.

The oldest and most widely performed work, Laconisme de l’aile (track 10), which the Finnish composer first presented her in 1982, moves from a short poetry recitation into fitful, rapidly fluctuating lyricism, only to end with a series of rising scales before the sound vanishes into thin air. In Couleurs du Vent, performed on alto flute, Hoitenga seamlessly blends speech with extended techniques.

Works such as these reveal Saariaho’s ability to combine melodic invention with a relentless push toward new technical frontiers. The opening track, Tocar, reorchestrated for flute and harp (Héloîse Dautry), has the feeling of a recitative as the flute sings above rivulets of archaic sound. Faultless audio engineering preserves the fine balance between two instruments more often noted for their timbral contrast.

A similar principle applies to Mirrors, here performed in three different versions together with cellist Anssi Karttunen. Mirrors II draws upon furious melodies and wide range of color, while Mirrors III is more reticent and slow-moving, Karttunen’s trembling and scraping textures adding to the sense of unease.

The album’s centerpiece, Sombre I-III, was commissioned from the chamber ensemble Da Camera of Houston and premiered at the Rothko Chapel in 2013. In keeping with the tone of the painted walls, Saariaho opted for dark colors such as bass flute and baritone (Daniel Belcher) as she set three fragments of Ezra Pound’s last Cantos. Intricate percussion intermingles with hovering, unearthly atmospheres to create a soundscape as spiritually vast as it is intimate. “Do not move/Let the wind speak/that is paradise,” declares the speaker after surmounting a thick instrumental haze in the inner movement. But it may be Hoitenga, and not Belcher, who holds center ground as an insidious stream of bass flute colors the third and final poem. (Rebecca Schmid)