From Collection QB, Quatuor Bozzini’s in-house label, comes a body of work from their longtime collaborator, the Vancouver based composer Owen Underhill, entitled Songs and Quartets. The recording pairs two separate string quartets, String Quartet No. 2 and String Quartet No. 5 — Land and Water. Sometimes performing pure instrumentals and sometimes supporting vocals performed by countertenor Daniel Cabena, alongside Jeremy Berkman on tenor sacqueboute/trombone and Quatuor Bozzini on violin cello. The lyrics are taken from the poetry of seventeenth century authors Henry Vaughan and Sir Walter Raleigh. On the recording, chamber music strings are fastened to operatic vocals and jazz-inspired soliloquies from Berkman’s trombone. The correspondence between the three elements form stirring arrangements, straddling lyricism and experimentalism. The scores lead the listener along a singular path, driven by Cabena’s vocals with the strings and trombone creating an atmospheric mist circling the vocals on The Retreat and What Is Our Life?. There is an ecclesiastical reverence vibrating through the 4-track series “Northern Line — Angel Station” performed by String Quartet No. 2. The enigmatic musings of the strings wander with a purpose, communicating messages to the listener in a language comprehended by an incorporeal part of its beholder. Underhill gives the tracks a ghostly aura that both mystifies and elevates the audience.

The music of Vancouverite Owen Underhill is original and ambivalent. This ambivalence arises from the fact that it occupies a sonic territory often straddling consonance and dissonance, between modernism and ancient music. This is evident in his two vocal works (the “Songs”) featured on this album, The Retreat, and What is our Life? The strange and ghostly beauty of their vocal lines somewhat recalls the cantus firmus of 15th and 16th-century polyphony, while the disparate accents (sometimes undulating, sometimes incisive) of the string quartet root everything in a contemporary modernity. Underhill adds a sackbut (the ancestor of the trombone) to the score, which offers a rustic color equally appropriate. The texts are by ancient poets: Henry Vaughan and Sir Walter Raleigh.

The two quartets offer a different perspective. The String Quartet No. 2, Northern Line — Angel Station, is rooted in the legacy of the Second Viennese School. We are here in an austere, scholarly setting, meticulously woven, whereas Quartet No. 5, Land and Water, brings us closer to the recent avant-garde, that of the second half of the 20th century, let’s say. There too, ashen panoramas, scattered textures, but magnificent.

The Bozzini take on these scores with care. Kudos to countertenor Daniel Cabena and sackbut player Jeremy Berkman in the two vocal works.

Translated from French.

Put out on the circuit via the ensembles very own Collection QB label on June 27th, 2k25 is Songs And Quartets, the second full on collaborational release between the famed string quartet that is Quatuor Bozzini and Vancouver-based composer Owen Underhill. Opening with The Retreat which is, given its total runtime if nearly 14 minutes, a little more than just a ’song’ we’re drawn into a fascinating grey area sitting right in between Contemporary Opera, score works and an overall vintage feel on par with classic golden age Broadway performances, pairing ethereal vocal performance with a perfectly balanced string dramaturgy ranging from calm and floating harmonic form to short dramatic outbursts and enchanted playfulness whereas the four sections of Northern Line — Angel Station (String Quartet No. 2) speak a deeply caressing and emotionally connected sonic language, relying on mostly sustained, stripped down yet lush and somewhat melancholic string arrangements for the most part despite a few slighty deliberately off-kilter peaks to be found in Adagio calmato, Animato. With the second 10 minute+ ’song’ named What is Our Life? things are getting more lively in a Contemporary Classical vein, with the almost 11 minutes spanning piece covering an entire ark of(e) motions before the final String Quartet No. 5 — Land And Water rounds things off with an array of dramatically beautiful string works in parts evoking memories of alpine mountain ranges, unscathed rural forests and simpler, yet not less happy times with the Holy Isle even presenting some rather danceable, albeit festive sections. Quite a lovely album not speaking exclusively to a classically trained or at least well versed audience but rather one that can be well enjoyed by the casual fan of Contemporary Classical music and modern composition due to its overall harmonic approach.

For those unaware, the Bozzini Quartet presents a new release featuring Vancouver-based Owen Underhill, a composer who has achieved considerable acclaim, including the Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Classical Composition and a Juno nomination.

The album Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets, his third portrait disc and second collaboration with the Bozzini Quartet, vividly captures Underhill’s unusual musical personality. His work frequently and audibly demonstrates a deep respect for and undeniable knowledge of the concert music tradition, but it is by no means traditional.

The works on this recording are superficially accessible and even somewhat familiar, but as soon as listeners look beneath the surface, a disorienting quality emerges.

Taking his Trombone Quintet as a starting point, he discussed with the quartet the possibility of once again enlisting trombonist Jeremy Berkman for these works, this time on the sackbut. It was then, Underhill tells us in the introductory notes, quite natural to move on to the seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry of Henry Vaughan and Sir Walter Raleigh, sung by the countertenor Daniel Cabena.

On what is a simply stunning work of musical art, the new album opens on the chilling, ethereally ornate The Retreat and then brings us the breathtaking quartet that makes up Northern Line — Angel Station (String Quartet No. 2); the first a stirring Adagio calmato, then comes the more furtively entrancing early on, latterly prowling Ritmico, Con spirito, the sedately paced Adagio calmato, Animato, culminating on the grand, playful dancefloor twirls of Quodlibet.

Along next is the organically-imbibed, hauntingly elegant masterpiece What is our Life? and that is in turn backed by the quartet String Quartet No. 5 — Land and Water; which begins with the at first and last quiet, but centered with a skittish nature Dead Tree over Spring Creek, before the resplendent Holy Isle, the searingly sumptuous Raccoon on Wintry Beach then giving way to the final work in the piece, an effortless demeanor shown within the gently strident fare of Sunlight on Mountain Peak.

Hem rebut un nou àlbum de música contemporània de Riparian Media, una companyia fundada per Nick Storring l’any 2018, que s’ha especialitzat a donar veu a artistes i collectius dedicats a la música experimental i a l’exploració sonora.

Aquest àlbum, editat pel segell Dame-Music, representa la continuïtat d’una fructífera collaboració amb el Quatuor Bozzini, un conjunt amb el qual Owen Underhill ja havia treballat des de l’enregistrament del seu Trombone Quintet, l’any 1999.

La producció d’Underhill abasta un ampli ventall de textures i colors instrumentals, des d’obres orquestrals i corals fins a música de cambra que transita entre conjunts tradicionals i agrupacions més singulars, amb instruments d’època o formacions xineses.

Cal subratllar la seva dedicació a la promoció de la música contemporània canadenca, fet que el situa com una figura clau dins l’escena musical actual.

Establert a Vancouver, Underhill ha creat un univers sonor que inclou orquestra, veu, cor i una gran varietat de conjunts de cambra, sovint amb instrumentacions poc convencionals que desafien els límits del llenguatge musical.

Songs and Quartets, que reuneix les obres The Retreat, Northern Line—Angel Station, What is our Life? i Land and Water, posa de manifest la seva versatilitat i la seva fascinació per les combinacions inèdites en la música de cambra. La seva escriptura es caracteritza per una densitat vibrant, un colorisme ric i una lírica subtil, qualitats que brillen en cadascuna de les peces d’aquest àlbum. El compositor canadenc aposta pel diàleg creatiu amb els intèrprets, aprofundint en la interpretació i l’expressivitat, fet que converteix aquest àlbum en un autèntic reflex de la seva identitat artística.

«Amb una transició del tot fluïda, vaig arribar a la poesia metafísica del segle disset de Henry Vaughan i Sir Walter Raleigh, en la veu del contratenor Daniel Cabena», explica el compositor.

Les quatre peces que conformen el disc revelen un llenguatge musical que és una trobada elegant i sorprenent de diversos elements. La seva capacitat per reconciliar amb tanta coherència aquesta combinació inusual posa de manifest tant la seva habilitat com la seva imaginació com a creador.

El Quatuor Bozzini, que ja ens havia captivat amb el seu enregistrament anterior (vegeu-ne la ressenya), destaca per una interpretació d’una integritat artística exemplar: sempre fidels a l’essència de les obres, però aportant-hi una mirada pròpia, valenta i profundament reflexiva.

Canadian ensemble Quatuor Bozzini are out with thew album Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets, and it is the classical music legacy that this production revolves around. I presume that chamber music will be the specific category of choice here, and the compositions here are creation that to my mind at least blend aspects of old traditions with more contemporary oriented details. The string section is obviously in the limelight here, with two four part instrumental compositions providing ample space and room for the instrumentalists to play around with conventional movements as well as subtly dissonant and off kilter sounds and surges, and with a recurring use of what might be described as a drone like string section combination that adds a different vibe to these constructions. We also get two compositions that revolve a bit more around vocal displays, and here the strings are bit more toned down as well as being used in more of a careful and light toned manner, and combined with the controlled, careful and at times borderline ethereal vocals this creates a more sacral or religious mood and atmosphere for these two works. An album to seek out if classical music revolving around the string sections and a more contemporary and experimental take on the chamber music tradition is a kind of material you tend to enjoy.

Quatuor Bozzini er et kendt, klassisk kammerensemble med base i Canada. Ensemblet, der pt. fejrer sit 25 års-jubilæum — blandt andet med disse indspilninger af kompositioner af Owen Underhill (f. 1954) — er kendt for sit fokus på ny partiturmusik. Ensemblet har med afsæt i det fokus spillet et utal af kurraterede koncerter (hundredevis af uropførelser) og indspillet et utal af album — konstant med sans for og fokus på kvaliteten i det nye. Når jeg hører ensemblets håndtering af Owen Underhills sange og strygekvartetter, ja, så hører jeg da også både rutinens overbevisende tyngde og åbenhedens forfriskende elasticitet. På det nye album indgår to instrumentale suiter (”Northern Line — Angel Station” og ”String Quartet no. 5”) — hver opdelt i fire satser — og to sange med tekster af henholdsvis Henry Vaughan og Sir Walter Raleigh. På sangene medvirker foruden strygerkvartetten — der består af Alissa Cheung, Clemens Merkel, Marina Thibeault og Isabelle Bozzini — kontratenoren Daniel Cabena og messingbetvingeren Jeremy Berkman. Og vel er materialet nyt og krævende, men det er også solidt funderet i en traditionsbevidst stringens, som klæder såvel kompositioner som ensemble.