Felipe TÉLLEZ
Songs of Longing
Fate, Op 1/1, for piano quintet [12:05]
Colombian Songs, Op 1/2, for string quartet [20:56]
TakeFive Ensemble
rec. 2020, Revolution Recording, Toronto, Canada
CENTREDISCS CMCCD28721 [33:01]
Felipe Téllez is a Colombian-Canadian composer and orchestrator. Judging by his photograph in the booklet, he is fairly young, and I can be quite sure that it was taken recently, as he is wearing a mask. This makes these two works, written in the last few years, surprising in their old-fashioned nature. The piano quintet brings to mind fin de siècle France, while the string quartet goes back even further, with hints of Haydn, Schubert and others. Not that this is a problem in itself: I’m the last person to want music to be all hard edges, dissonances and strange noises just because it was written in the last few decades. Nevertheless, I feel it should be recognisably of this era, rather than a complete throwback, which can lead to a sense of pastiche. If I wanted to listen to works of the eras mentioned, I would go back to the source, and choose Fauré or Franck, Haydn or Schubert.
The composer contributes one page to the booklet, discussing his intentions for the two works. The piano quintet ‘Fate’ “embodies his associated feelings with what “fate” truly is”. He admits that this is rather “blurry”, but attempts to clarify his meaning with the descriptors “certain and chaotic”, “holy and supernatural” and ”playful and mocking”. I’m afraid I don’t really hear any of that here. The quartet ‘Colombian Songs’ is apparently influenced by the Colombian folk genre, Bambuco, of which I have not the slightest experience. He describes the five movements as being stylised dances, which is not something that I picked up, but that is probably the consequence of not knowing anything about Colombian dance rhythms. The notes mention fast movements – to me, none were more than Moderato. His final paragraph describes the quartet as being a feat of endurance for the performers: at just over twenty minutes, none of it especially complex, that seems a huge stretch.
Normally, when I listen to a new recording, it is whilst sitting at my desk doing something else on the computer (I have a good quality audio system in my home office). The outstanding recordings – those of the Chiaroscuro Quartet and Vikingur Olafsson of recent times, for example – drag my attention away from the keyboard or screen, and force me to listen to the music. Alas, that did not happen here; indeed, I only realised that the quintet had finished and the quartet had started because I became aware that I wasn’t hearing any piano. For the purposes of writing this review, I then restarted the disc and listened without diversions. I can’t say that my attention was absolute throughout – there simply wasn’t enough interesting material. They are certainly pleasant enough, but unmemorable.
The performances seem first-rate; I would certainly like to hear the TakeFive Ensemble, whose string players are chairs in Canada’s leading orchestras, in other (better) music. The recording is very clear, though perhaps the piano is a little too forward. The booklet has a number of photographs of the recording session, and they are a “sad” reflection of the era in which we live: all performers and recording staff wearing masks. I am writing this on the afternoon where here in New Zealand, community transmission of the Omicron variant has just been confirmed, and we face a few months of disruption and uncertainty (though one thing is certain: the various symphony concerts that I have tickets for won’t be happening on schedule).
There is another reason I fear for the success of this recording, and it’s nothing to do with its musical qualities, but rather because of its pricing. On Amazon US, it is priced at over $18 for the CD, AmazonUK wants over £18, and Presto more than £10 for the download. For what is essentially a full-price release giving just over half an hour’s music, I think an intending purchaser would be looking for something quite outstanding, and sadly, the two works presented here are anything but.
The French version of the disc’s title is, I feel, very pertinent: Chansons de Nostalgie. Undoubtedly, since this is a Canadian production, longing is the correct translation, but to this English speaker, nostalgia is very much what we are hearing here.
David Barker
