{"id":26160,"date":"2015-03-07T16:35:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-07T21:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=26160"},"modified":"2015-03-07T16:35:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-07T21:35:53","slug":"concert-review-the-elmer-iseler-singers-highlight-peter-anthony-tognis-warrior-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/03\/07\/concert-review-the-elmer-iseler-singers-highlight-peter-anthony-tognis-warrior-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"CONCERT REVIEW | The Elmer Iseler Singers Highlight Peter Anthony Togni’s Warrior Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Elmer
Elmer Iseler Singers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Friday evening in Walter Hall, the spotlight was on Peter Togni. The Elmer Iseler Singers, under Lydia Adams, presented an entire program of music by the Halifax-based composer and broadcaster.<\/p>\n

What a fine idea the concert seemed to be. Togni has written extensively for choir, and has enjoyed an artistically productive relationship with the Iselers. In 2009, the choir released a recording of his Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae<\/em> (Lamenatations of the Prophet Jeremiah) on the ECM label, and the disc was well received.<\/p>\n

The well-known English critic Norman Lebrecht wrote that he was \u201csmitten by Togni\u2019s atmospheric force, imposing a contemplative mood with a gloss of consolation that is the quest of all faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail<\/em> compared Togni favourably to such big-name composers as Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo P\u00e4rt and John Taverner. And, writing for my own blog, \u201cEatock Daily,\u201d I declared the piece \u201ca powerful and expansive work.\u201d<\/p>\n

So with Lamentatio<\/em> in mind, I was very much looking forward to Friday\u2019s concert. (However, astute readers will have noticed my use of the ominous phrase \u201cseemed to be\u201d three paragraphs back. I\u2019ll expand on that idea, in good time.)<\/p>\n

The program consisted of just two works: a relatively short Requiem in Lux<\/em> for choir, and the longer, multi-movement Warrior Songs<\/em> for choir and percussion. This latter piece was billed as a Canadian premiere, and prominently featured the Halifax-based percussionist Jerry Granelli.<\/p>\n

Requiem in Lux<\/em> was a moving piece, full of juicy, cluster chords. However, there was a tentative quality to the Iseler\u2019s performance \u2013 and those clusters weren\u2019t always perfectly in tune.<\/p>\n

Just before Warrior Songs<\/em>, Togni found his way to the stage to talk about his latest composition. He explained that, despite the title, his new work had pacifism at its core. His songs were about \u201ca warrior who never goes to battle,\u201d and \u201ca warrior for non-aggression.\u201d And the texts \u2013 a diverse selection of lines by St. John of the Cross, Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rimpoche (a Tibetan Buddhist) and Macolm X, with some Latin liturgical material added for good measure \u2013 supported this idea.<\/p>\n

Togni also spoke of his close collaboration with Granelli, in the creation of Warrior Songs<\/em>. And it soon became apparent just how intrinsic to the piece this remarkable musician was.<\/p>\n

Taking his seat behind a percussion set up \u2013 drum kit, timpani, gongs, cymbals and a few other instruments \u2013 Granelli began the piece with an extended solo. And this virtuosic outburst, full of dramatic change-ups in rhythm and dynamics turned out to be the first of several such solos, interpolated between choral movements.<\/p>\n

Ganelli\u2019s performance was spontaneous and largely improvisatory. (I don\u2019t know what kind of score was on his music stand, but there\u2019s no way that every note he played could have been committed to paper.) And he brought a whole gamut of techniques to his performance, playing his drums with his hands and hitting gongs with his fists.<\/p>\n

This was all well and good \u2013 but Ganelli\u2019s brilliant outbursts weren\u2019t very well-integrated with the choral aspects of the piece. Only in the last movement, \u201cMy Sincerity Is My Credentials,\u201d did Togni really bring his two musical forces together in a unified way.<\/p>\n

In the choral movements, Togni seemed eager to expand this vocabulary beyond the chant-like melodies and lush harmonic moments that are a staple of his style. However, his vocal glissandi, and also some strangely wobbly and nasal effects, sounded like aberrations. Indeed, the choir didn\u2019t always seem on top of things \u2013 as though Adams and the Iselers weren\u2019t sure where the piece was going.<\/p>\n

In the end, Warrior Songs<\/em> didn\u2019t really go anywhere, or add up to much of anything. Disappointingly, the piece is musically disparate and dramatically uneven. It didn\u2019t even end in a conclusive way \u2013 it just kind of stopped when it was over.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday evening in Walter Hall, the spotlight was on Peter Togni. The Elmer Iseler Singers, under Lydia Adams, presented an entire program of music by the Halifax-based composer and broadcaster…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":26163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,76,19,52],"tags":[4941,5334,5335],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/03\/dsc0068.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-6NW","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26160"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26168,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160\/revisions\/26168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}