Composer
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The world-premiere recording of Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Requiem marries the placidity of plainchant to complex rhythmic energy, powerfully communicating an intensely personal listening experience.
“In my music, peace and restlessness co-exist continually”. So explains award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel, describing his setting of the Requiem, which marries the placidity of plainchant to complex rhythms and meters. Scored for chamber orchestra, choir and solo soprano, and setting the complete standard Latin text, this world-premiere recording posseses a steady current of energy that propels the work ever-forward, whilst Chris’ contemplative musical language enhances a sense of intimacy that makes its communicative power feel intensely personal.
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Multi-award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel has created a truly unique magnum opus: The Gospel According to Mark, a seven-hour oratorio setting the disciple’s text from the King James bible in its entirety.
What originated as an idea to distil the text, as most passion music does, Christopher quickly became more interested in setting the complete prose. He chose to compose a work employing an English Protestant text, rather than the more traditional Latin or German, envisioning The Gospel According to Mark as a seven-hour-long prayer.
With the text as Christopher’s starting point, the musical motifs and melodies followed, setting concepts including the themes of teaching, healing, miracles, forgiveness, death and resurrection.
The scope of the text is illuminated by scaled-down forces – chamber-sized string orchestra plus two horns, oboe (doubling oboe d’amore) and cor anglais (doubling bass oboe), with soprano, alto, tenor and bass solo voices.
Unlike other oratorios, the singers do not represent any particular person but rather act as a chorus of storytellers. Christopher explains, “This nebulous use of the voices, which sidesteps role assignment, keeps the vocal parts more abstract and hence the listener focused on the text.”
With Christopher’s faith as his guide, The Gospel According to Mark takes the listener a journey through the contrasts of peacefulness and agitation, darkness and light.
Oboe Sonata Excerpts
Oboe d'amore Sonata Excerpts
Suite for Unaccompanied Oboe Excerpts
Oboe d'amore Quintet Excerpts
The soulful sounds of the oboe and oboe d’amore infuse the expressive, lyrical new album of solo and chamber works by award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel. The star of the show is Seattle Symphony principal Mary Lynch VanderKolk, whose artistry plays a vital role in Chris’ compositional process. He explains, “I find ways to incorporate her strengths and personality into expressing the music’s emotions.” The Oboe Sonata, dedicated to Mary, is by turns haunting and pastoral, navigating the full three-octave range of the instrument. The Sonata for Oboe d’amore demonstrates the large timbral and emotional range of the oboe’s lower-pitched cousin, from darkness to light. Undaunted by the historic canon of iconic solo instrumental works already in existence, Chris – an oboist himself – created a tour de force with his Suite for Unaccompanied Oboe, a work Mary describes as “more cinematic” than his other concert works, not surprising perhaps given his countless award-winning TV, film, and theatrical scores. The album concludes with what is surely the only Oboe d’amore Quintet ever composed. The instrument’s plaintive tone takes centre stage against the backdrop of string quartet, as the work moves from serenity, melancholy, and nostalgia, before ending with an invigorating finale that brings the inspiring album to a close.
Reviews:
Featuring the talents of oboist Mary Lynch VanderKolk, the new album Christopher Tyler Nickel: Sonatas and Chamber Music for Oboe and Oboe d’amore masterfully explores the full range and lyrical aspects of the oboe while spiritedly challenging its technical capabilities.
Opening with the Oboe Sonata specifically composed for VanderKolk, Nickel’s own familiarity with the oboe is clearly demonstrated as he insightfully captures the strengths of the player – creating beautifully sweeping lines that showcase VanderKolk’s colourful and lyrical capabilities as she artfully navigates the dynamic and rhythmic passages in a way that only the most consummate performer could.
Imagining the pensive sadness of the lone instrument at twilight is what one may experience as they listen to Nickel’s second piece of this collection, the Oboe d’amore Sonata. Perhaps seemingly absurd or contradictory… the tenebrous quality of the oboe d’amore truly shines in this technically challenging and yet melancholically dazzling achievement.
The narrative in the third instalment of Nickel’s delightful and most recent exploit can be summed up in one simple word… virtuosic. The Suite for Unaccompanied Oboe, features contrasting movements that explore mixed articulations, lustrous technical flourishes and dramatic leaps over the full range of the instrument. VanderKolk’s interpretation and execution of this work make it absolutely breathtaking.
The album concludes with the Quintet for Oboe d’amore for the namesake instrument and string quartet in a uniquely distinctive composition drawing the listener in with the dark, melancholic timbre of the double-reed instrument traditionally only heard in Baroque music, making this piece the first of its kind and a true testament to this Canadian composer’s proclivity for the oboe family and ability to fashion narrowly defined aspects of both music and the instrument into a broader phenomenon.
– Melissa Scott – The WholeNote
Symphony No.2 Excerpts
Vast, deep and emotional are apt descriptions of the single-movement, 53-minute-long Symphony No. 2 by Christopher Tyler Nickel. The award-winning Canadian composer elaborates, “One can think of this music as consisting of mirrors between ideas that equally disturb yet entice. Each side of the reflection is in itself conceivably valid, but when facing each other friction and dissonance are created. The exquisitely alluring and the grotesque exist simultaneously. Perhaps another way to understand the symphony is as a meditation on the state of cognitive dissonance.” The entrepreneurial Clyde Mitchell conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia on this world-premiere recording.
Reviews:
Having now listened to the Nickel Symphony No. 2 numerous times and having come to enjoy and appreciate it more and more with each listening, I hope I can persuade at least some of our good readers to likewise make their acquaintance with these talented folks though this compelling recording of an intensely focused and powerful 53-minute work.
A line on the back cover of the CD case sums up the symphony as “a “vast, deep, emotionally demanding work.” and I would have to say that I pretty much agree with that assessment. In many ways I find it reminiscent of some of the brooding movements of Shostakovich, such as the opening movements of his Symphonies Nos. 8 and 10. That is not so much to say that Nickel sounds musically like some kind of clone of the Russian master, but rather that this work brings the listener into that same kind of, yes, vast and deeply involving emotional soundworld. With a total time a mere one second shy of 53 minutes, that single movement is marked “Grave – Andante – Grave – Mysterioso – Fatalistically – Grave.”
That might make it sound as though this is depressing music; however, that is not the case. Serious music, yes, but not depressing. There are motifs that recur throughout the work in various instrumental guises with varying levels of emphasis and emotional intensity. All sections of the orchestra get their chance to contribute, but the work sounds like an organic whole, all of one piece, rather than a parade of virtuoso exhibitions. Although it in a sense serves as a fine showcase for the orchestra, it in no sense sounds like a concerto for orchestra. In the end, listening to it is a rewarding experience, and although it is an intense experience, it can be an uplifting, energizing experience. A stretching experience, if you will.
Classical Candor
Oboe Concerto Excerpts
Oboe d'amore Concerto Excerpts
Bass Oboe Concerto Excerpts
Christopher Tyler Nickel’s contemporary classical compositions pack a bracing and emotional punch. His award-winning works for the concert hall, stage and screen have been heard in over 160 countries by audiences in the tens of thousands. His experience as an oboist instils a confidence to compose with an exhilarating freedom to explore the vast expressive range of the instrument, from lyrical and plaintive to acerbic and brittle. The world-premiere recordings of these three concertos for oboe and its lower-pitched siblings the oboe d’amore and bass oboe receive dazzling performances by Mary Lynch, principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony, and Harrison Linsey, oboist with the Washington D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra. Grammy Award-winning David Sabee, a tireless advocate of contemporary classical music, conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia.
Reviews:
He may be best known through his sizeable output for television (dramas and documentaries) but Christopher Tyler Nickel (b1978) has also created a notable and often ambitious range of concert works. These concertos find him at pains to bring out the character of each instrument.
Not that the Oboe Concerto (2012) is demonstrably inferior to those which follow, even if its half-hour duration arguably over-extends the thematic content. The opening movement finds soloist and orchestra locked in confrontation that builds to a visceral climax, then the central Andante exudes a haunting wistfulness whose lambent harmonies find potent contrast in the rhythmic trenchancy characterising the final Allegro. More convincingly shaped, however, is the Oboe d’amore Concerto (2014) – the eloquent first movement evincing an unease that pervades its fantasia-like successor as it heads methodically and remorselessly to a plangent cadenza which, in turn, leads into an affecting recollection of the opening music. Outwardly more conventional, the Bass Oboe Concerto (2016) initially pursues a teasing equivocation that ventures on to deeper emotion in the central Adagio; its wistful poise is countered with an agitated final Allegro whose deadpan humour feels not a little ominous towards the end.
These substantial, often engaging works are accorded full justice by the soloists for whom they were conceived. Mary Lynch performs feats of agility on her brace of instruments, then Harrison Linsey endows the bass oboe with soulfulness and gravitas. David Sabee secures a committed response from the Northwest Sinfonia (strings especially lustrous in those latter two pieces), captured in an ample but never diffuse ambience. Well worth investigating, not least by adaptable oboists looking for music to challenge themselves and intrigue audiences.
Richard Whitehouse – Gramophone Magazine
Oboe Suite Movement 1 - Excerpt
Oboe Suite Movement 2 - Excerpt
Oboe Suite Movement 3 - Excerpt
Oboe Suite Movement 4 - Excerpt
Symphony for Flute Choir - Movement 1 - Excerpt
Symphony for Flute Choir - Movement 2 - Excerpt
Symphony for Flute Choir - Movement 3 - Excerpt
Symphony for Flute Choir - Movement 4 - Excerpt
Music for Woodwind Choirs features two major works, one for an oboe ensemble (consisting of two oboes and two English horns), the other a thirty-minute “symphony” for flute choir. Richly evocative and dramatic, each work takes full advantage of Christopher’s combination of experience writing music for both the concert hall as well as his dramatic instincts composing for film and television.
The Suite for Two Oboes and Two English Horns consists of four contrasting movements based on Christian liturgy. From the serene Kyrie, dramatic Dies Irae, reflective Lacrimosa, and finally an energetic Gloria; this piece takes the listener on a sonic journey through the emotions found in each prayer. The Symphony for Flute Choir is also in four movements. The movements contrast one another by using the full expressive range of the flute family. With no programme per se, this piece is often brooding and filled with angst, which at times give way to fleeting moments of uplift, and closes with a fiery finale that is filled with highly demanding jagged rhythms and metric changes. Both works are virtuosic in their demands of the players.
These riveting performances feature some of the finest Canadian performers on their respective instruments, all under the direction of conductor Clyde Mitchell who has created engaging interpretations that will enrapture the listener. Dramatic, energetic, and gripping; Music for Woodwind Choirs takes this unique chamber music sound and gives it a breadth and voice that can be appreciated by both the seasoned musician and general audiences alike.
Reviews:
The two large works on this CD, both composed in 2017, are Suite for Two Oboes and Two English Horns and Symphony for Flute Choir. Each is performed by a group of superb Canadian musicians, conducted by Clyde Mitchell, music director of the Lions Gate Sinfonia and former associate principal horn in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The performances are, to my ears, flawless and vital.
Nickel’s music is full of life: imagination, invention, variation – a deep understanding of the craft of composition. The artistry, for example, of the opening movement of the Suite, is evident from the first notes: the same note played three times on the English horns, to which the oboes reply with a five-note motif on three pitches. This is just the beginning of a journey, which leads us through an episode of melodic development and several contrapuntal episodes – in the complexities of which we never feel lost – and then back to a satisfying recapitulation. This is composition at its best – arresting and masterful.
The Symphony for Flute Choir brings comparable invention: in the first movement Nickel develops what sounds like an atonal theme – an engaging one – into 12 minutes of music, always interesting and all derived from this one short theme. In the second movement I was struck by Nickel’s extraordinary melodic flair, a satisfying blend of repetition and variation.
I hope there will be live performances of these wonderful works in the not-too-distant future!
Allan Pulker – The Whole Note
20 for 2020: Volume III is Inbal’s fifth release for AVIE and the label’s third featuring the music of Christopher Tyler Nickel. A decorated composer for film and television as well as an oboist, in his haunting Fractures of Solitude Chris combines cello octet with oboe d’amore, two English horns and bass oboe, creating vast orchestral sonorities played by just two instrumentalists.
Horizons Sample
Aurora Sample
The Shores of my Homeland Sample
Then There Was You Sample
The Wind's Last Breath Sample
A Timeless Love Sample
One Moment Under the Stars Sample
The Promise Sample
Dream Sample
“Horizons” marks the first album release from composer Christopher Tyler Nickel. Performed by the acclaimed City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, and featuring two breath-taking flute solos by Jack Chen – the music is immediately accessible with its beautiful melodies, dramatic sweeping themes, and powerful orchestrations. From the epic, to the quiet and sentimental – this is music that will move the listener, and take them on a musical journey.
Reviews:
Excellent work from classical composer Christopher Tyler Nickel. Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic and featuring our own Jack Chen on flute, this is engaging and compelling music that deserves a wide audience. The man should be in the movies. A”
The Province Newspaper
To say that the music presented here is gorgeous, would possibly even be an understatement. Horizons gets off to a great start with the title track, a sweeping, inspirational, Americana-styled piece….followed by one of the standout tracks on the album, the beautiful A Timeless Love, which again features Chen on the flute, and which positively soars at the end. All in all, a great, easy listening album, and a great showcase for Christopher Tyler Nickel’s versatile talents.
Jeff Hall – Screensounds
Lacrimosa (Rain) - Excerpt
Tranquility (Rain) - Excerpt
Evening Rains (Rain) - Excerpt
Love's Moment (Rain) - Excerpt
Whispers of Eternity (Rain) - Excerpt
Lost in Twilight (Rain) - Excerpt
Rain Part 2 (Rain) - Excerpt
Bold, dark, reflective, tender…Rain, the second album from composer Christopher Tyler Nickel, is truly a study in contrasts. Defying categorization, this album weaves together a symphonic orchestral sound, Christopher’s penchant for soaring melodies, as well as touches of pop, rock and minimalism into a moving and cohesive listening experience.
Rain was recorded with large orchestra, choir, solo soprano and solo English Horn. Powerful, tender, dark, tranquil are just a few adjectives that describe this tour-de-force of bold musical gestures. Rain features the exquisitely beautiful and versatile voice of soprano Catherine Redding, whose performances will instantly enrapture the listener with their crystalline beauty and emotional depth. Also featured is English horn soloist Beth Orson, whose brilliant performances include two haunting and rhapsodic solos that will leave their melodies with the listener long after.
Once again, Christopher has collaborated with the City of Prague Philharmonic who offer a rich and expressive musical canvas for the two soloists’ performances. With the release of Rain, Christopher Tyler Nickel makes a bold musical statement, deftly combining disparate genres, sounds, and styles into a cohesive musical experience. This album charts a new artistic direction for the composer… one that will captivate and enthrall the listener!
Reviews:
Rain. The ten-track almost 54-minute project incorporates lovely vocal contributions from Catherine Redding (soprano), Beth Orson (English horn) and Jack Chen (flute). Synthesizers are performed by Nickel himself. The orchestra is conducted James Fitzpatrick and is comprised of the The Strings of the City of Prague Philharmonic. Further recordings by The Northwest Sinfonia are conducted by David Sabee and solo sessions were recorded in Vancouver and Dublin. The album was mixed and mastered by Perry Blackman.
Rain opens with a rich and uplifting orchestral crossover opening “Overture, “Rain,” “Lacrimosa” sequence where Catherine’s vocal work soars above the choir and rich crossover arrangement. These first three tracks are superbly composed, arranged and sung, however it is Catherine’s soaring vocal work that will draw listeners in. The orchestra’s themes work perfectly to underscore the sung parts. A long and gentle instrumental entitled “Rangimarie” (Tranquility) featuring Beth Orson’s English Horn performance provides the bridge to further sung passages.
In addition to the superb opening sequence, Catherine also contributes sung parts to the individual tracks “Evening Rains,” Love’s Moment,” “Lost In Twilight” and “Rain II” on the album. Coming out of “Rangimarie,” “Evening Rains” is a melancholy tune sung, as one would expect, with Cartherine’s tremendous clarity, and is backed with lush orchestra backing. The orchestral ballad “Love’s Moment” is sung exquisitely atop a richer, more cinematic arrangement. Catherine’s vocal control and tremendous consistency is simply astounding. “Lost In Twilight” serves as an equally lovely bookend. Classical vocalists have so much to offer listeners that take the time to appreciate them.
Listeners should delight with the brief return of the richer choir texture as “Whispers of Eternity” begins to develop orchestrally. Running over ten minutes, it clearly echoes themes of the opening sequence with Beth Orson’s English Horn parts that cohesively bind the album together. The album’s crescendo begins with “Rain II” that clearly echoes the opening “Rain,” Catherine’s vocals soaring above the deep and percussive orchestral arrangement sharply bringing he piece to an end. “Epilogue” is a lovely concluding track blending natural sounds of rain, Catherine’s soaring vocals and a light piano part. The melody remains.
Chrisopher Tyler Nickel, Catherine Redding and Beth Orson have worked together to produce a fabulous classical crossover album with tracks to appeal to soundtrack lovers and female vocals enthusiasts alike. Nickel’s compositions draw interest, include gentle ballads, cinematic instrumentals and the tremendous “Rain” opening and closing sequences. Very well done indeed!
Musical Discoveries