A feature review and interview, by Heather Ladd

In a season when Handel’s Messiah is hauled out, dusted off, and performed to countless audiences around the country, a new and intriguing choral piece has been launched. Peter-Anthony Togni’s Lamentatio Jeremiah Prophetae, a concerto for bass clarinet and choir, was performed on November 14 to a full and rapt audience gathered at Toronto’s St. Anne’s Anglican Church.

Togni, a composer, musician, and CBC Radio host, is a long-time Halifax resident who grew up in Ontario. Saturday’s concert, which celebrated the CD release of this original work on ECM, is a coup for Togni, now the first Canadian composer to be signed to the prestigious record label. With the CD launch, Lamentations takes its place in an ECM catalogue that features the likes of jazz giants Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek, and the Estonian classical composer Arvo Pärt. Fine company for the Haligonian.

St. Anne’s could not have been a better setting for Togni’s event. Like the Group of Seven paintings adorning this place of worship, Lamentations is a Canadian reflection on higher things. Its five movements give an account of a prophet who is ignored and persecuted in troubled times. In light of the global financial crisis, lines in the fourth movement (“How is the gold become dim”) seem very profound indeed: “Those accustomed to dainty food perish in the streets; those brought up in purple now cling to the ash heaps.”

Togni’s work is surprisingly modern and accessible. Lamentations is contemporary in its musical aesthetic as well as its themes. According to the composer, roughly 30% of the piece is improvised, and stands as a vehicle for the amazingly talented Atlantic Canadian bass clarinetist, Jeff Reilly. Despite this, Lamentations still maintains the emotional and spiritual force of an older tradition of choral music, from Monteverdi to Bach to Britten. Here, the old and new are brought to life: Togni’s work reminds us that there is room for invention within tradition, room for renewal amidst struggle.

Reilly made use of the full range of his instrument, setting the drama through his initial flights and plunges of virtuosity. The clarinet’s soliloquy was met by the harmonized voices of Toronto’s Elmer Iseler Singers. The choir conveyed the urgency of the prophet’s message while sometimes trying to suppress it. In the climax of the piece, the choir ominously increased its volume and pitch, warring with, rather than supporting, the bass clarinet, which is drowned out. A soprano part, sung beautifully by Rebecca Whelan, punctuated the Lamentations as a singular voice of hope and of despair. At various points in the performance, the audience was “surprised by joy,” lifted out of the moody, mournful, and tumultuous soundscape.

The singers display all that’s best about a very old choral musical tradition, but it’s the bass clarinet—an instrument often overlooked—that made this fare so different. Like Jeremiah himself, the soloist—in dialogue with the choir—represents the human in dialogue with God and his times who rages, suffers, fears – but at the end of it, still believes. Speaking to Peter Togni immediately before the concert, I asked him what I should listen for. Instead of pointing me towards a specific musical thread, he encouraged me to pay attention to how the music makes me feel, the vagaries of its affective power. He did not steer me wrong; from the first strains to the last, Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae is a deeply moving work which captures the restlessness of belief in modern times.

I spoke with Peter-Anthony Togni following the Toronto launch of Lamentations.

Heather Ladd: Congratulations on the Canadian launch of Lamentatio Jeremia Prophetae.

Peter-Anthony Togni: Thank you very much.

HL: The Lamentations of Jeremiah tells a story. Who is Jeremiah to you?

PT: Well, Jeremiah’s timeless really. For me, he is someone who tells the truth, who rails against the storm. He lives in the margins. He’s a man of incredible faith and integrity, a man with a singular and universal vision. And he can relate to many of the truth-tellers today who aren’t necessarily religious figures in our society. These are people who are telling the truth about the environment. Take someone like Al Gore: he is, in a way, a truth-teller, though a lot of people don't listen to what he has to say. More importantly for me, Jeremiah is the face of the broken. And that’s the big one for me. We’re all broken. I know I certainly am.

HL: And the world’s broken.

PT: Yes, the world is broken. But ultimately things will be OK, because I believe in hope; I believe in light. But the world is broken in so many ways. Jeremiah is the face that we ignore on the street, that street person who we don’t want to go near because he doesn’t smell so good, or look so good, or because he’s going to ask us for money. As I was writing this piece, I was reminded of my own poverty, my own tragedy, my own sins. If you’re really trying to be authentic, it’s a challenging and exhausting process because of reality on the one hand and the world you can create on the other. Jeremiah for me is that voice of authenticity.

HL: I like this yoking together of sound and story in this work. But without the story of Jeremiah would this piece mean as much?

PL: I don’t know, but there are certain chords that resonate with people. As well, the sound of the drone near the end of the piece resonates. I think the one sustained note draws on so many musical traditions, the Scots, the Arabs, the ancient Greeks. There is definitely something about drones. Perhaps it’s a cheap composer’s trick, but I just really love drones. I suppose that stems from my love of the organ, being able to put your foot down on the pedal.

HL: You wrote this piece as a vehicle for Jeff Reilly. In what ways does his style of playing, as well as the instrument itself, influence your composition?

PT: I’ve worked together with Jeff over the years. We’ve played together in a trio called Sanctuary. And through that I really fell in love with the bass clarinet, with its possibilities. I find it in many ways the perfect instrument for Jeremiah because it’s an instrument that is kind of disregarded. This instrument has an amazing range. Jeff plays with the extremes and I was attracted to that because Jeremiah is a person who plays with extremes and this is a piece about extremes.

HL: I was really struck by the element of improvisation in this piece. A lot of people don’t associate improvisation with classical music.

PT: And I think that’s sad because it’s a tradition that died out. Improvisation was always a huge part of classical music because in church services organists—organists still do this today—improvised. But in his concertos Mozart had a thing called a cadenza, and these were improvised. The musicians would improvise on pop tunes of the day. Beethoven was the last great improviser. After Beethoven died, for some reason the tradition died and classical music become more “the composer is God” and he’ll tell you exactly what to do.

HL: The Lamentations of Jeremiah have been set to music before, by Thomas Tallis and others. Is your piece influenced by these earlier works?

PL: Yes, and no. There was one piece by Orlando de Lassus that really moved me. It was unlike a lot of Renaissance music, which is very polyphonic—one line coming after another. This work had a lot of chords in it and it moved me with its wall of sound. What I do is create sheets of sound for the horn to move over.

HL: You recorded Lamentations in Halifax, specifically in the All Saints Cathedral. Why this particular church?

PT: Part of it is practical and part of it is acoustic. First of all, All Saints has a very wonderful acoustic in certain parts of the building; in others, the acoustic is a bit difficult. But we went into a very far corner of the building where it was absolutely magical. What you have to consider when you’re making a recording is also street noise. There’s another great venue in Halifax, St Mary’s Basilica, but we couldn’t do it there because the street noise is tremendous—lots of buses and cars. Also, the All Saints Cathedral has been very kind to us over the last little while. I’ve had concerts in there with Sanctuary and they were very accommodating.

HL: St. Anne’s Church [the location of the Nov. 14 Canadian launch] was also a beautiful setting for this piece.

PT: Interesting that it was in the Byzantine style when the piece is very much east meets west. It was perfect, complete with the murals from the Group of Seven. And then the Jeremiah Community, which is based at the church. I didn’t even know that until the day before the concert. But I looked it up on the website and I thought, ‘wow, this is amazing.’

HL: What kind of reaction did you get when you toured this piece through Atlantic Canada? How would you describe the classical music scene there?

PL: There’s a real love for choral music in this part of the world. We did a performance of it first in Antigonish. It was received well, but it wasn’t thunderous, but they received it in a very deep way. For some people it was a bit much, they had to think about it, or maybe hear it again. But when we performed it in Lunenberg, the audience went crazy. People were in tears and coming up to me and just blubbering; they were ripped apart. And the same in Halifax, where it was received incredibly well.

HL: So many great bands come out of your city. Do you feel like you’re part of that larger music scene?

PL: In a way, yes, but in another, we’re all in our little pockets here. But there’s a guy here by the name of Rich Aucoin. Rich has done a lot of work here, as a DJ and he’s done some massive projects. I’ve recorded some organ tracks for a thing he’s doing that’s coming out soon which is going to have everyone you can think of on it; Joel Plaskett is on it.

HL: Who would say your audience is right now? Are you interested in broadening your audience?

PL: Always. My audience is anyone who listens to my music. The truth is that if it’s in a classical music series, then most of the people that come to these concerts are fifty and over. But I think in the right setting, with the right kind of collaboration, my music would work for young people.

HL: Definitely Lamentations.

PL: I would like to try some performances of it outside the church setting. Perhaps a foundry, a factory or an airplane hanger that had great acoustics. It doesn’t have to be in a church. It tends to be that that’s where the acoustics are good. But making it accessible is the challenge today, and particularly for people writing so-called classical music. My music is in that camp, but it is also outside of this camp. It’s difficult because we’re living in a world with three-minute sound bytes.

HL: The music video.

PL: Yes, and it’s so hard to reach people; there’s so little time for thoughtfulness anywhere. Turn on the the radio today and ninety percent of it is hype and madness. Some people turn on their televisions at seven o-clock in the morning and leave them on all day. I just don’t do that.

HL: Thanks for speaking with me today, Peter.