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.
