These three works for clarinet and string quartet by contemporary Canadian composers (Grella-Mozejko was born in Poland but lives in Canada) are lithe and supple compositions which have been flawlessly executed by the performers. … River to the Ocean… is a haunting and colorful journey with an organic formal process (even the jarringly bright major chords sound natural and justified, although surprising).

Le livre des mélancolies is a more tangled and twisted chamber piece than its predecessor. The string quartet is more actively engaged with the clarinet sound which makes the clarinet feel less like a soloist and more like another timbral possibility of the ensemble. Speaking of colors, they abound in this work (and the disc as a whole). Each of the three movements stays in a largely meditative emotional space, although each does so in its own sumptuous manner.

Slow Dances harnesses more direct energy than the previous two pieces. Especially in the second movement, A Sort of Tango, there is finally some aggression and power to jar me out of the haze created by the earlier pieces. Don’t get me wrong, I was in a blissful sort of absinthe haze. It was nice to be shaken out of it by a tango (of any sort).

Each of these three pieces is performed with great care, color, and musicality. Quatuor Bozzini makes easy work of the constantly shifting timbral demands in each piece and Jean-Guy Boivert matches the ensemble at every single point along the way.

Le fait que les trois œuvres canadiennes enregistrées ici pour la première fois aient été composées dans les années 90 pourrait rendre mélancolique à propos de la difficulté à produire des enregistrements du répertoire contemporain de chez nous… Mais écoutons, et réjouissons-nous. Le Quatuor Bozzini y est si remarquable qu’il donne des ailes aux compositeurs, et le clarinettiste Jean-Guy Boisvert, trop rare sur nos scènes (il enseigne à Moncton), atteint une qualité qui frise la poésie. L’homme a été à l’école de Stockhausen et ça se sent, particulièrement dans la pièce de Piotr Grella-Mozejko. Le quatuor est plus présent, pour notre bonheur, chez Jean Lesage, qui donne son titre au disque, et chez Tim Brady. Du miel pour l’oreille.