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The Arts Desk

Here’s a beautifully presented and performed collection of music by Canadian composer Samuel Andreyev. His 22-minute Sonata da Camera makes for a rather dour album opener, so I’d advise skipping forward to In Glow of Light Seclusion, a cantata for soprano and chamber ensemble using texts by the British poet J. H. Prynne. Andreyev refers to their “intricate, lattice-like structures that weave together different fields of reference”, setting them to equally intricate music. The tiny impromptu separating the third and fourth poem is especially ear-catching, celesta and mandolin adding astringent splashes of colour. Soprano Peyee Chen tackles Andreyev’s soaring, lyrical lines with a confidence suggesting that she fully understands Prynne’s dense prosody, even if we don’t; phrases like “solo integrated life spell” and “wild reject obtuse thrown down whenever on” left me baffled. Just sit back and enjoy the sound of the thing.

Vérifications is described as cartoon music, “a mad caper” scored for cut-down versions of regular instruments. Piccolo, musette and piccolo clarinet squeal away merrily in what Andreyev compares to a four-movement compressed symphony. A Sextet in Two Parts features more quirky scoring (basset horn, percussion and cello featuring in the lineup), the individual voices combined to alluring effect in the second movement’s ghostly chorale. Intriguing, distinctive music, performed with enthusiasm and impressive accuracy by the Ensemble Proton Bern under Luigi Gaggero.