Romance: Early Canadian Chamber Music. Elaine Keillor, piano; Edvard Skerjanc, violin; Rosalind Sartori, violoncello. Carleton Sound CSCD 1009. $20.98. Available from the Canadian Music Centre Distribution Service: www.musiccentre.ca

Gena Branscombe: Sonata in A Minor for The grandest composition is Edward B. Violin and Piano Manning's full-length Trio, dating from the Claude Champagne: Habanera first years of the twentieth century, though Alexis Contant: Romance apparently subject to revision until the 40s. An Laura G. Lemon: Mazurka expatriate working in New York, Manning Edward B. Manning: Piano Trio studied with MacDowell and Humperdinck. Rodolphe Mathieu: Lied His trio complements the better known Trio of Leo Smith: Indian Romance; Alexis Contant; but where Contant's work is Sonata for Violoncello and Piano innately part of late French romantic tradition-represented on this disc by Contant's slight but charming Romance for The steady discovery of the depth and breadth cello and piano-Manning's work is a sturdy, of the Canadian musical repertoire has more academic piece, rather less imaginative, progressed substantially in the last decades. and, for me at least, rather less ingratiating. Romance: Early Canadian Chamber Music, published by Carleton Sound, adds to this awareness by focussing on anumber of figures Picton Ontario native Gena Branscombe writing for chamber ensemble before the was another expatriate who, as it turns out, Second World War. Elaine Keillor, one of the also studied in Berlin with Humperdinck. Her pre-eminent figures in the musical heritage one-movement Violin Sonata, which dates movement, is the pianist on this CD; she's from 1920, is also in the florid and extroverted joined by Edvard Skerjanc, violin, and (and, in its own day, the increasingly Rosalind Sartori, cello. Together they've conservative) late romantic idiom, but is more created a uniquely valuable CD featuring two formally innovative and focussed than the major duo sonatas and a sipficant piano trio, Manning trio. fleshed out with a attractive succession of shorter works. The remaining big work is a portion of Leo Smith's Cello Sonata, composed in the early The composers represented fall loosely 1940s. London-born, Smith came to Canada into three generationalgroups: Alexis Contant, before World War I. The sonata's slow Clarence Lucas, and Laura Lemon were born movement is surprising and fresh: hints of in the mid-nineteenth century; Edward B. Celtic twilight modality flavour writing that is Manning, Leo Smith, and Gina Branscombe both imaginative and personal. In the sonata's date from the mid-1870s and early 80s; and complex Me,Smith occasionally seems out Qukbec composers Rodolphe Mathieu and of his compositional depth as he strives to Claude Champagne were born in the early relate a number of tempos and cyclic 1890s. references. The performers make a convincing effort at presenting this quite remarkable work-and one longs to hear the unrecorded promising composers; the importation of first movement. others; the regional identification with conservative or radical European traditions; and the obvious and undeniable separateness Also recorded is Smith's Indian Romance, of the musical tradition in Quebec. more of a salon piece than a chamber duo. Purportedly based on fragments from First Performances are solid, and the recorded Nations' music, Smith's materials are worked sound good. One senses that the point of the out in a rather more conventional idiom than CD is to encourage other performers, the Sonata. especially those active in the great chamber music boom of our own age, to present these The remaining shorter works range from works to the broader musical public. The disc Lemon's Mazurka, an unabashed potboiler, is a required acquisition for any collection and Clarence Lucas's Legende to Mathieu's concerned with the heritage of Canadian quirky and harmonically advanced Lied (from music. 19 15) and Champagne's sultry Habanera. David Duke It's uncanny how one CD can bring up Music Department such a number of key issues in the study of Vancouver Community College Canadian music: the export of Canada's most