This recording of the Viola Music of David Jaeger features violist Elizabeth Reid and pianist Alison Bruce Cerutti, both prodigious artists on their instruments. The disc features spirited, occasionally restless performances that thrillingly capture the adrenalin rush of a live concert albeit the fact that it is a wonderfully produced studio recording. Needless to say, the disc is built, end-to-end, upon the ingenuity of David Jaeger as a maverick composer.

Tristan and Isolde – the first of two sonatas – favours flowing tempi, which is brilliantly executed by Ms. Reid and Ms. Cerruti.  Soon, however, there is an even greater sense of spontaneity and elasticity. This is, of course in keeping with the character and idiomatic whimsy of Mr Jaeger’s compositional style employed in both sonatas, really.

 

Sonata No 1, a quite unique piece, starts off serenely indeed. Soon one becomes aware of a growing sense of ebullience. This is subtly signaled when in the second movement as liquid streams of notes gather into a gentle cascade, and reaches a fruition in the coda, which surges exultantly in the piece’s dénouement.  

The Six Miniatures for Unaccompanied Viola are compositions inspired by the imagism of Scottish poet David Cameron’s dancing verse. Throughout the course of these short works there is an ebb and flow, a multiplicity of swirling currents – deftly traversed by Ms. Reid – that are somehow contained as an uninterrupted, unified body.

The second half of the disc is devoted to three works rather bold in their outreach as they feature the dark tone-textures of the viola stretched out against an electronic canvas created by a battery of [electronic] instruments.

On Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds [another work inspired by the English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition] Jaeger favours a brush-stroke kind of melodic line, daubed by some intricate figuration. Ms. Reid imbues her bow strokes in unison with Jaeger’s melodic pen, which shadows Constable’s brush. The ingenuity of this is quite affecting throughout the unfolding of the piece.

 

The composer seems to engage in in an interminable dance, unfolding elegantly on Sarabande. Viola and electronics come together in graceful embrace tackling the passagework with delicacy and intimacy. The resulting feeling of anticipation is exquisite. Ms. Reid’s playing delights with old-world and otherworldly charm.

The album closes with Favour which is, perhaps, the most ambitious melding of viola and electronics. Ms. Reid brings to her instrument a truly diverse tonal arsenal. The colourful melodic lines are rendered with silken legato. Dizzying stuttering double-stops and delays amplify the work’s texture and intensity.

When they appear together Ms. Reid and Ms. Cerutti seem perfectly suited to each other’s artistry, going for broke as they encounter Jaeger’s “outward-bound” work. Ms. Reid makes her viola spit and whine like a musician possessed. Ms. Cerutti, meanwhile, stabs at the music’s syncopations with bravura gusto. This is a disc that will sit proudly on any musical shelf.

^{Deo gratis…}

_{YouTube Playlist – Conjuring: Viola Music of David Jaeger}

Music – 1: Sonata, Tristan and Isolde [1992] – I – Slowly, but with intensity; II – Allegro; III – Chanson, douce et sauvage; 2: Sonata No 1 for Viola and Piano [2018] – I Introduction [calm, with flowing motion], II – Allegro bizzaro; III – Very hushed and slow – presto – coda; 3: Six Miniatures for Unaccompanied Viola [2021] – I – Landscape, II – Evening, III – Conjure You, IV – For Winter, V – A Blessing; VI – Gifts; 4: Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds [2021]; 5: Sarabande [1993]; 6: Favour [1980]

Musicians – Elizabeth Reid: va; Alison Bruce Cerutti: pf

Released – 2023
Label – RedShift Records [TK524]
Runtime – 49:04

Editor’s Note: On Friday, January 20, 2023, a Pre-Release Concert of Conjuring: Viola Music of David Jaeger took place at the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto. It was an enjoyable evening, in a very intimate setting, where we had the pleasure of listening to live performances of this album, and participating in a conversation about the project by David, Elizabeth and Alison. Photographs courtesy of Liam Jaeger.

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While he’s not unknown outside Canada, within its borders David Jaeger (b. 1947) is revered as a pivotal figure in the history and development of Canadian contemporary music. Many a listener versed in that scene knows him as the radio music producer for the CBC’s fondly remembered contemporary music program Two New Hours, which ran from 1978 to 2007 and helped give exposure to many a homegrown performer and composer. Others know Jaeger as a founding member of the pioneering Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE), which, established in 1971 and still operating, can legitimately lay claim to being the longest-running live electronic group in the world (this Canadian’s first exposure to the group didn’t occur at a Toronto venue, interestingly enough, but at De Ijsbreeker in Amsterdam in June 1985 as part of that year’s Holland Festival).

Jaeger is also, however, a composer of considerable note, as shown by this terrific collection by Canadian violist Elizabeth Reid with pianist Alison Bruce Cerutti (the now Vermont-based Reid has collaborated with Cerutti, a Vermont native, since 2004). His compositional output spans decades and is as adventurous as it is substantial. Even in this single-disc presentation, evidence of his range is clear when the material extends from solo viola miniatures to daring electroacoustic explorations. Reid’s association with Jaeger started in 2014 when she performed his 1980 work Favour for amplified viola and electronics, and the collaboration continued thereafter with concerts in Canada and the United States. After a well-received 2019 performance of Sonata no. 1 for Viola and Piano (2018) with Cerutti, Reid decided the time was ripe to record a full album of his material, specifically one that would feature pieces for viola and piano, unaccompanied viola, and viola with electronics. Befitting the composer’s panoramic range of interests, the recording is eclectic and adventurous.

The compact Sonata, Tristan and Isolde (1992), isn’t a straight-up Wagner homage but rather a piece for viola and piano written in honour of Jaeger’s mother’s seventieth birthday and titled in part after her pets. Affection emanates from the hushed lyricism of the oft-mysterious opening movement (“Slowly, but with intensity”), notable also for its daring harmonic choices. The central “Allegro” is, naturally, animated, its playfulness perhaps reflecting the personalities of the pets; by comparison, the closing “Chanson, douce et sauvage” largely re-instates a serene tone with lovely duet voicings by the performers. Arriving twenty-six years later, the Sonata no. 1 for Viola and Piano adopts a brooding tone when chromatic harmonies and a memorable theme (which returns at the work’s close) amplify the introductory part’s haunting aura; the second movement is as unruly and mischievous as its “Allegro bizzaro” marking implies, while the third’s “Very hushed and slow – presto molto – coda” accurately captures the material’s shape-shifting character.

Jaeger wrote Six Miniatures for Unaccompanied Viola (2021) after poems by Scottish poet David Cameron, which, because they’re included in the release booklet, allow for a fascinating to-and-fro between the texts and the composer’s imaginings. Listening to “Conjure You,” for example, it’s tempting to draw an equivalence between the poem’s “Tie up the black parcels with string / And go to their funeral-wedding” and the dive-bombing glissandi that surface halfway through. With most only about a minute long at a time, the vignettes come and go quickly yet long enough to register a distinct personality. Another recently composed work is Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds (2021), its title a reference to Cloud Studies created by the English Romantic artist, John Constable. In this first of three electronically enhanced settings, the viola responds agitatedly to an alien, atmospherically suggestive backdrop.

The final two pieces, Sarabande (1993) and Favour (1980), are companions for the fact that each incorporates systems of electronic delay. The simpler of the two, technically speaking, is Sarabande for employing a single playback track for the violist to play against. After unaccompanied viola calmly introduces the piece, electronic elements seep in, though not so disruptively they get in the way of the violist’s bowing and pizzicati. When violist Rivka Golani asked Jaeger to write a work that would involve amplified viola and audio delays, he created a piece featuring two separate delay systems controlled by volume pedals, Favour. Cycling string patterns give a number of passages thrust, but moments of contemplative calm also emerge amidst the percussive electronic effects.One of the best things about the project—recorded, fittingly, at CBC Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto—is that in assembling six Jaeger pieces into an album-length statement the listener comes away from it with a generally good grasp of his music, much more so than if, say, a single piece of his had been included on a compilation featuring works by Canadian composers. Even if its focus limits itself to the viola music he’s written, Conjuring nevertheless allows for a solid appreciation of his writing style and sensibility.

March 2023

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