Ensemble for These Times: Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan
E4TT

Comprised of soprano Nanette McGuinness, pianist Dale Tsang, cellist Anne Lerner, and composer David Garner and regularly complemented by guest artists Ilana Blumberg (violin), Laura Reynolds (English horn), Xin Zhao (piano), and others, Ensemble For These Times (E4TT) both focuses on work by historical figures deserving of greater recognition and new composers with compelling work to offer. Illustrative of its approach is its second release, 2018's The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus, which, among other things, features material by film composer Miklós Rózsa and the premiere recording of a piece by Lajos Delej (1920-1945). Perpetuating E4TT's desire to bring attention to underrepresented artists is its latest collection, Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan, an imaginatively conceived and curated set whose release coincides with the centenary of the poet's birth.

McGuinness (also E4TT's co-founder and co-director), Reynolds, Blumberg, Lerner, and Zhao perform on the recording, which features commissioned works set to Celan's poetry by Garner and Jared Redmond plus a piece by Stephen Eddins based on poetry by Czelsaw Milozs and a solo piano setting by Libby Larsen. While Celan is an artistic figure who exerted a strong impact on twentieth-century European literature, many who recognize his name might know little else about him—a state of affairs E4TT aims to correct with the project. In brief, Celan, who was born into a German-speaking Romanian Jewish family, saw his parents die in a concentration camp while he himself endured a stay in a forced labor camp, his life eventually ending in suicide in 1970. Understandably his poetry was informed by personal experiences of suffering, imprisonment, and survival, and his focus on issues such as the rise of fascism and nationalistic fervour resonate again in light of right-wing resurgence in the United States and other parts of the world.

Belying the darkness of such themes, 4 1/2: A Piano Suite (2016) by Larsen (b. 1950) inaugurates the recording brightly in its first movement, though a haunted tone does inform the “In memoriam”-subtitled fourth in keeping with its elegy-like character. Whereas the second, scored for left hand only, perpetuates the playful tone of the opening movement, the spidery third locates itself in the lower registers of the keyboard. Unifying the interrelated five-part work, the closing movement reinstates the high-spirited positivity of the initial parts.

Die eichne Tür (The Oaken Door), the seven-movement cycle written in 2017 by E4TT founding member Garner (b. 1954), moves the recording into chamber territory in setting Celan poems, including “Espenbaum” (“Aspen Tree”), a meditation on survival and his mother's death, to arrangements for soprano, violin, English horn, cello, and piano. As satisfying as Larsen's opener is, Garner's feels more substantial in grappling directly with Celan's poems and thematic territory. Vocal and instrumental passages alternate effectively, with the tension induced by five poetic renderings alleviated slightly by two robust interludes. Enhancing McGuinness, who gives powerful voice to Celan's texts, is distinguished playing by Reynolds, Blumberg, Lerner, and Zhao, with all five honouring Garner's creation with fully committed performances.

Complementing it is Nachtlang (Nightlong), the 2017 two-part work by Redmond (b. 1986), that sets Celan's “Notturno” (Night) and “Einmal” (“Once”) to arrangements for soprano, cello, and piano. For twelve minutes, the piece advances from the spectral shadows of its opening movement into a creeping second that curdles as tantalizingly. Setting the stage for the album-closing A Song on the End of the World (2018) by Stephen Eddins (b. 1954), also scored for soprano, cello, and piano, is a reading of Milosz's poem by the late writer's son, Anthony. The shift from the dark atmospherics of the Redmond work to spoken word is so dramatic it's pretty much a non sequitur, but the effect isn't displeasing, especially when Anthony's unaccompanied reading of the text is so gripping. The reinstatement of the chamber presentation for Eddins's portentous setting ends the recording on a satisfying note, its slow fade punctuated by McGuinness's repeated intonation “No other end of the world will there be.”

March 2021