Collecting Composers with A Cabinet of Curiosities 2

“Obscure and random” might be a good description for my internal monologue at times, but it’s also the core concept of Apocryphonia’s A Cabinet of Curiosities 2. As the name indicates, Apocryphonia, founded by tenor Alexander Cappellazzo, is all about recovering music suspiciously missing from the usual repertoire. This musical series champions worthy pieces curiously cut from the canon. While many concerts feature at least something new and unfamiliar tucked into the set list, Sunday night at the Heliconian Club was a buffet of new sounds.

So that’s the “obscure” part taken care of. As for “random,” A Cabinet of Curiosities offered a further turn of the screw by randomizing the set list. This meant that the order was sometimes counterintuitive. To give one example, violinist Rezan Onen-Lapointe began her sonata of choice with movements 3 and 4, treating us to variations of a theme when we would not hear the original until after the intermission. Likewise, Narmina Afandiyeva played her selection of six preludes by Qara Qarayev beginning with number 11 and ending with number 7. I believe Maeve Palmer was the only performer who wound up singing her two selections by Donnacha Dennehy in numerical order (albeit with six other performances in between them). The artists, evidently, were given no advance knowledge of the order, which I’m sure left them feeling as if they were constantly “on deck”.

The historian in me demands I take a moment on the title. A “Cabinet of Curiosities” (Kunstkammer, or sometimes Wunderkammer) occupies an interesting piece of Europe’s intellectual history as a kind of proto-museum in which an array of items of historical, anthropological, zoological and general scientific interest were assembled for display. The “cabinet” in this case refers to a private room in a home rather than a piece of furniture. Entering such a room you might see a collection of geodes next to a narwhal’s horn (a “unicorn” to be sure!) and various items of indigenous artwork, while a stuffed alligator hung overhead. All of which were probably shelved together with a lack of systematic organization that would make any modern museum curator’s head spin. All knowledge and curios were assembled together with more enthusiasm than method. “Look at this cool stuff I found,” it seems to say.

If Alexander’s goal in putting this show together was to capture that kind of enthusiasm for discovery, I think he succeeded. Musical selections seemed in some cases to be quite personal, and with a set list including French, German, Irish, Japanese-Canadian and Azerbaijani composers, shuffled together in no particular order, it was every bit as jammed with variety as a good Wunderkammer ought to be.

While I very much appreciate the format of the concert, I shall not attempt to replicate it here. Instead, let’s arrange this discussion around the artists. The first offering was from Daniel Ramjattan on guitar, playing Echoes from the Sea by Naoko Tsujita. This music was stirring and came with a solid film recommendation: Silence, directed by Martin Scorsese. The music was inspired by the history of secret Christian congregations in Japan, and the first movement, while contemplative, had an undercurrent of tension that I feel spoke to worshippers’ fears of discovery. His next excerpt had, on the surface at least, a more cheerful sound, but the guitarist pointed out this evoked the way in which people will carry on with their quotidian concerns even against the backdrop of genocide. No timely message there, I’m sure.

Narmina Afandiyeva performed preludes from Qara Qarayev, as noted above. She also played the role of accompanist for the singers. She excelled in both roles, which comes as no surprise. The randomized order in which we heard her six selections made for an interesting experience, as they sometimes provided some striking juxtaposition with the rest of the set list. Prelude 12, deep and ominous, made for a very interesting follow up to the more sanguine sounds that had preceded it from Daniel’s guitar. Later the fierce storm of notes offered by preludes 9 and 10 acted like a shot of adrenaline after Maeve Palmer wrapped up the mournful “He wishes his Beloved were Dead.” Her final prelude was number 7, which was probably the most placid sounding of the lot: had we heard that first it would surely have made for much different listening.

Tenor Cameron Mazzei shared his discovery of “Deita Silvane” by Ottorini Respighi during his Masters degree. The selections all had a kind of pastoral quality to them, appropriate for the title which means “Woodland Deities”. I though his enthusiasm for the pieces was contagious as he shared which one was his favourite (“Crepuscolo,” which I thought had a slightly funerial air to it), and pointed to the way in which the piano in “Acqua” had a sound like rushing water in a stream.

Next up, Leslie Barcza offered up some Debussy arranged by Gustave Samazeuilh. Preempting any objections that Debussy didn’t fit the night’s theme, he explained how he found transcription as a form of adaptation to be very interesting and invited us to listen to this piano arrangement of an orchestral piece and try to hear the orchestra. His further thoughts on the event are available here.

Not to be outdone, Rezan Onen-Lapointe came ready for three pieces of music, and brought two violins to the party while she was at it. One of the violins, she explained, needed to be strung differently for the first piece, “Nighean donn an araidh” (a Gaelic title). She found this anonymous work, which apparently has not been recorded, while researching in the library. Here was a genuine discovery, very in keeping with the theme of the evening.

Violin was joined by theorbo played by Benjamin Stein for two additional pieces. “Lacrimae Pavane” by Johann Schop was up first. This was a variation on the better known John Dowland piece, “Flow My Tears.” Here we were also treated to a brief rendition of Dowland from the singers in the audience. A bit of theorbo does seem to transport you to the 17^th century, and hearing a different version of that familiar tune tickled the early modernist part of my brain again.

There was another of those curious juxtapositions when the pair played their second piece in between a particularly fierce Qarayev prelude on the one hand, and the somber “Crepuscolo” on the other. This was variations on “Hit her on the Bum”, by Robert Brenner. Rezan addressed the elephant in the room and said she was sure the “hits” were both playful and consensual. “Playful” is definitely the word for the music that followed: somehow the audience resisted any urge to clap along, though I doubt I was the only one to chuckle at the left hand pizzicato, which seemed, per the violinist’s commentary, to evoke a spanking.

Finally, Maeve Palmer was not properly introduced until just after the intermission, though she had lent some linguistic assistance earlier with the proper pronunciation of “Nighean donn an araidh.” She opened and closed the second half with excerpts from Donnacha Dennehy’s That the Night Come. These were both settings of W.B. Yeats poems, each concerned with death, so I was immediately on board. I’ve already mentioned the longing sounds of the first excerpt, “He wishes his Beloved were Dead.” The “He” in the title is looking through the veil that separates living and dead, and wishing for his lover to join him, almost like an inverse Orpheus and Eurydice. As I was enveloped by that clear, heart-rending sound from Maeve’s voice I could just about imagine the veil being pierced.

The second excerpt, “Her Anxiety,” was every bit as stirring as you would expect from the title. Another meditation on mortality, this piece seemed to suggest that death’s release may yet provide a cure for the calumnies of time and age. As the music reached its resolution, I think I had been fully convinced by those haunting lyrics, “Love is nearer death.” In the evening’s voyage of musical discovery, I believe I found one curio at least to take home with me, and this deathly piece may have made its way onto that set list I’m keeping for my funeral.

As for whatever is next for Apocryphonia? I’d say I’m curious.