There’s so much one can say about last night’s Apocryphonia concert “A Cabinet of Curiosities”, but I’ll try to keep it under control. I talked my head off with tenor Alexander Cappellazzo, who is the founder of Apocryphonia and the Diapente Renaissance Vocal Quintet, two Toronto-based groups dedicated to showcasing underperformed repertoire, the tenor starring in a recent opera by the Chevalier St George, L’Amant anonyme, impressing with his easy delivery and fearless command of his upper register.
I missed Diapente on the weekend of May 12, otherwise occupied, but determined not to miss this one.
In “underperformed repertoire” we’re encountering works from seven composers, six of whom I had never heard of before plus a seventh whom I admire (Hanns Eisler, whose music is rarely heard).
Here’s the program I downloaded, although two of the works listed by Yamada (# 5 and 7b) were omitted last night. Pianist Cecilia Nguyentran played all 34 pieces.
There were 19 piano solos plus 15 songs/ arias that require the piano, so while Alexander got breaks, Cecilia did not.
We were in the Cecil Community Centre, a lovely little venue with seating for 50 people that was completely filled up, an ideal performance situation allowing the artists to connect directly with the audience.
There was an added wrinkle to the process, namely the way the pieces were assembled. Instead of giving us the usual series all by one composer, we accomplished a kind of shuffle, as you might get from your electronic device. We were asked upon entry to pick from a jar, and then our picks would be constructed into a set list. I cheated because of whom I wanted to hear (Eisler), although that likely had no impact. Alexander joked that this made us complicit, that we helped create the program.
I was a skeptic, thinking “but these are new to us, how is this going to work, if we disrupt the usual sequence…?“ But I was so wrong. There’s much to learn in coming at each movement each song afresh as though it’s a separate thing a separate beginning a fresh attack beginning anew in each piece, listening as though from first principles, without assumptions. I wish we could try that with something familiar, to de-familiarize de-construct the usual experience. What if we had Beethoven & Handel and Debussy, movements/chunks mixed in this random manner? I think it could be wonderful to hear the works we think we know, to change our thinking and make them new again.
Perhaps this is how we should always listen?
The last song was possibly the most interesting of all… was this by accident? A fluke caused by the programming algorithm /the game of selection? Perhaps.
“The mermaid” by Capel, is a stunning song more for baritone than tenor: with an interpolated high note Alexander added (as he told me after, when I resumed talking his ear off,.,,,).
The piano part includes the sounds of an oceanic turbulence, the watery grave of which we should be afraid, as each verse tumbles headlong downwards…. There’s a pattern in part of each verse that put me in mind of Debussy’s Sirenes, the perfect rhythms of nature’s organic and unstoppable energies. Yet this is a song not out of place in a bar, a ballad to caution young men lured to their deaths. Capel is a Canadian whose work deserves to be better known. Every one of these six songs was worth hearing.
I could comment on each composer, but am more inclined to want to dig up their scores and discover this music for myself.
Felix Blumenfeld? We heard 4 excerpts from his 10 Moments lyriques (1898), the last to put me in mind of a Chopin prelude from the 24 Op 28 with its wild octaves employed in chromatic ventures up and down the keyboard. Cecilia made remarkably bold sonorities from the upright piano.
Nicanor Abelardo is a Filipino composer whose three pieces from the 1920s included an Ave Maria with a high B (if my ear didn’t fail me), a prayer Alex chose to sing in a bold performative manner (presumably observing the dynamics as written)
Helen Hopekirk’s three Scottish songs encouraged Alexander to sing each one with a delightful colour and accent. They’re stunningly beautiful.
The concert was recorded, I hope it will be available possibly on video but certainly audio.
I will be watching to see what they’re up to next.