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Peter Anthony Togni: Lamentatio
Jeremiae Prophetae
Jeff Reilly, bass clarinet
Elmer Iseler Singers
Lydia Adams, conductor
ECM New Series 2129 |
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3 Reviews: La Scene Musicale, WholeNote and the
Globe and Mail |
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LSM
Online: The Lebrecht Weekly - CDs of the Week
March 29, 2010
by Norman Lebrecht
Five
Stars *****
The Canadian composer
Peter-Anthony Togni has a fascination shared by
Stravinsky with the tolling cadences of the
Prophet Jeremiah, who warned that the city would
be destroyed for its sins and then lamented its
fate in testimony and consolation. Of all the
recorded offerings for Holy Week (see below),
this is by some measure the most original and
affecting that has come my way.
Beneath a mixed chorus, Togni bravely inscribes
a bass clarinet as his only instrumentation. It
is a brilliant decision. The lower registers
conjure some of the tropes of Arabic music,
while the higher wails hint at klezmer
playfulness. The virtuoso clarinettist Jeff
Reilly extends his cadenzas across the history
of sound, from monotony to modernism, in a
performance that is dominant and often hypnotic.
Lydia Adams directs the Elmer Iseler Singers,
with solo soprano Rebecca Whelan.
Putting on this record without reading the
booklet, I was smitten by Togni’s atmospheric
force, imposing a contemplative mood with a
gloss of consolation that is the quest of all
faiths at this time of year. There is something
epiphanic about this music; resist it, if you
can.
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The Globe and
Mail
Monday, December 07, 2009
by Elissa Poole
The words of Jeremiah – the Bible's Cassandra, his
prophecies of doom unheeded – have inspired composers for centuries,
from Palestrina in the 16th century to Leonard Bernstein in the 20th.
Peter Anthony Togni, whose Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae is the
first Canadian work to be recorded for the eclectic ECM New Series label
(and who is widely known as a CBC Radio 2 host), is perhaps the most
recent of these. Togni's Lamentations share aesthetic and
spiritual ground with such composers as Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo Part and
John Taverner, but it is the solo bass clarinet's plangent, gritty and
sometimes shrill personification of the prophet – which sounds “with the
sadness of centuries” against the close, modal harmonies of the choir –
that gives this setting its potency.
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the WholeNote Magazine
December 2009/January 2010
by David
Olds (from DISCoveries, Editor's Corner)
Peter-Anthony Togni’s stunning Jeremiad is a concerto for bass clarinet and
mixed choir and it’s great to see it getting international exposure on
Manfred Eicher’s adventurous label. This very original work capitalizes on
Jeff Reilly’s ability to improvise and uses the bass clarinet as the voice
of the beleaguered prophet. The choir is in fine form, with soprano soloist
Rebecca Whelan deserving special mention. Recorded in the Cathedral Church
of All Saints, Halifax the broad acoustic is well suited to this haunting
music.
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