This is the Estria
Quintet's follow-up to Atma ACD2 2357
and cuts a cross-section through Canadian
classical output during the period
1946-67. As you may have guessed the
styles encompassed are diverse.
Dela was a
pupil of Claude Champagne and spent
much of his career as composer-arranger
for CBC. His Suite is tuneful and
full of a warm character swaying between
Ibert and Poulenc at their most sunnily
Mediterranean. The rocking motion
of the second movement, The Skiff,
is memorably attractive. The Gayfer
Suite is in five witty, life-enhancing,
folksy, sap-oozing and boozily cheering
movements. There’s a touch of a Malcolm
Arnold in this music and that final
movement ought to command real popularity
for this work and its composers.
After warmth and
wit from the 1940s comes Buczysnki's
tart and sporadically dissonant Suite.
It has a wistfully moody central movement
and a sturdy and complex finale. Toronto-born
Buczynski studied with Darius Milhaud
and Godfrey Ridout. Papineau-Couture
was born in Montreal and studied
with Quincy Porter. His Fantaisie
tends towards rasping and sometimes
irritable sometimes grotesque modernism
even in repose. Its asperity reflects
its 1960s vintage. There something
in the air and it wasn't going away
any time soon. It's in a single long
movement and was commissioned by CBC Winnipeg.
Papineau-Couture had an impressive
stable of pupils including François
Morel, André Prévost,
Gilles Tremblay and Jacques Hétu.
Hétu is represented
on this disc by two works: His Four
Miniatures are for wind trio -
playful, concise, robust and deftly
atonal. The music draws on a score
he wrote for a documentary of primary
schools. The Hétu Quintet
mixes serial, modal and tonal
approaches in a skittish and succinctly
expressed mélange. We are told
that the Quintet has become
one of the most popular Canadian wind
quintets - I am surprised that this
honour has not been usurped by the
Dela. In any event this disc is well
done at every level and has left me
keen to hear more by these composers
especially Dela and Hétu.
The notes, in French
and English, by clarinettist Pauline
Farrugia are consistently helpful
and full of interest. They tell us
that the Dela work was amongst the
first Canadian woodwind quintets.
Rob Barnett
Quintette à vent Estria (Kate
Herzberg (flute); Étienne de Médicis
(oboe); Pauline Farrugia (clarinet); Michel
Bettez (bassoon); Nadia Labelle (French
Horn))
