2 + 2 Compositions

2 + 2 Compositions

ASIN: B0009NZL7U

Track Listings

1. Scaffolding

2. Composition No.324b

3. Dots

4. Composition No.327c

Editorial Reviews
About the Artist
"The multi-reedist/composer might very well be jazz's last bona fide genius," reads the All Music Guide's entry for Anthony Braxton. "The best of his work is on a level with any art music of the late 20th century, jazz or classical." Fellow multi-reedist/composer, and former Braxton student, Matt Bauder has been an active member of the Berlin, Chicago and New York scenes where he performed and recorded with a long list of today's most prominent improvisers. His 2003 debut, Weary Already of the Way, was a Top 10 of 2004 pick in Coda and led Cadence reviewer Michael Rosenstein to call him "a talent to keep an eye on."

Product Description
2 + 2 Compositions unites the prolific Braxton with the members of the longstanding improv trio Memorize the Sky, as they perform two innovative graphic score-based pieces from each co-leader. Bauder's works are based on various classes of sound and the inspiration of Braxton and John Cage respectively, and Braxton's pieces come from his new Falling River Musics series, which in his words, "seeks to explore image logic construct 'paintings' as the score's extract music notation."

2 + 2 Compositions,Anthony Braxton,Matt Bauder,482 Music,Avant-Garde,Avant-Garde Jazz,Bauder's works are based on various classes of sound and the inspiration of Braxton and John Cage respectively, and Braxton's pieces come from his new Falling River Musics series, which in his words, "seeks to explore image logic construct 'paintings',Jazz,United States of America

Si ji (Four Seasons)
Average customer rating:

Successful crossing over from East to West

One of the best solo guitar albums I have ever heard

Virtuoso playing and an unusual repetoire

Si ji (Four Seasons)

Manufacturer: Gsp Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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Romance de Amor

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John Williams - The Seville Concert / John Williams, Paco Pena, Andres Segovia

ASIN: B000AXWHEY
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Tracks:

Wang Huiran: Yi Dance
He Luting: Shepherd Boy with Flute
Dietmar Ungerrank: Intonation & 4 Sound-and-Image Compositions - Intonation
Dietmar Ungerrank: Intonation & 4 Sound-and-Image Compositions - Long Out-stretched Pier with its Shadows
Dietmar Ungerrank: Intonation & 4 Sound-and-Image Compositions - Wind on The Hill
Dietmar Ungerrank: Intonation & 4 Sound-and-Image Compositions - Waiting for Guests
Dietmar Ungerrank: Intonation & 4 Sound-and-Image Compositions - Land Circus
Traditional - Heavenly Bird
Tradional - Lantern Song
Traditional - Mayila
Evan Hirschelman: Meditation No.2
Evan Hirshelman: Meditation No.1
Stephen Goss: The Blue Kite
Stephen Goss: Yellow Earth
Stephen Goss: Farewell My Concubine
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 1 T'ai
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 3 Lin
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 4 T'ung len
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 5 Huan
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 6 K'uei
Carlo Domeniconi: I Ching - 7 Chieh
Stephen Funk Pearson: South China Sea Peace
Thierry Rougier: Four Seasons - Spring
Thierry Rougier: Four Seasons - Summer
Thierry Rougier: Four Seasons - Autumn
Thierry Rougier: Four Seasons - Winter

Customer Reviews:

Successful crossing over from East to West.......2007-07-06

Nowadays many classical musicians move to 'cross-overs' between Western classics to exotic works, and Chinese musicians and composers pioneer in cross-overs from Chinese music to Western.
Alas, not all attempts are successful. Either there has not been enough nurturing in the Chinese repertoire, or the western playing style has not yet been fully developed.
Ms. Yang is a young classical guitarist. Gathering from what she said in her own introduction to this disc, she is a musician with a great ambition. It is true that the classical guitar may not have a substantial repertoire as other western instruments like the violin and piano. Hence drawing materials from other culture in a guitarist's repertoire is both a necessity and an endeavour.
A guitarist from Beijing, Ms. Yang is familiar with classical Chinese instruments like the gu qing, the zheng and the pipa. These ancient Chinese instruments are like the guitar- all are played by plucking strings set on wooden surfaces. So as Ms Yang herself noted - the guitar originated from the Middle East, a 'cross-over' area of Eastern and Western culture.
In many of the modern works recorded in this disc, Ms Yang played the guitar to the effect of those ancient Chinese instruments, and this is quite stunning. Her familiarity with the Eastern musical style is fully demonstrated, adding the requisite flavour of authenticity to her interpretation. There are a number of great compositions of the gu qing, the zheng as well as the pipa, and I truly look forward to Ms Yang's transcriptions of those to the guitar in due course.
A highly recommended recording for guitar players, guitar lovers and Chinese music fans alike.

One of the best solo guitar albums I have ever heard.......2006-10-06

One of the most original CDs I've ever heard. This CD is full of incredible music. Yang XueFei plays with sensitivity, creativity and passion.
When I played this CD for my guitar teacher, he commented that it was rare for him not to have heard at least one piece on any particular classical guitar CD, yet all these pieces were new to him. Carlo Domeniconi (who wrote the masterpiece "Koyunbaba") has composed an outstanding suite based on the I Ching. The 3 pieces by Stephen Goss, which are based on Asian films, are themselves cinematic: "The Blue Kite" is a work of minimalist beauty. There are many other talented composers lending their gifts to this CD. Most of the selections are either composed for Yang Xuefei or are arrangements by her. All are inspired by Chinese culture and music. My favorite piece is "Long Outstretched Pier with its Shadow" (by Dietmar Ungerrank); it is elegantly written and the execution is sensual and rich.
Yang XueFei's technical agility, especially the right hand, (as in "Yi Dance") goes beyond that of her contemporaries. As impressive as this is, the passion she imbues into each work is what connects her to the songs and ultimately to the audience. Technique is there to help her express what is inside of her. It is as if the guitar is her lover. This just isn't a great guitar album; it is a great album period. Its emotional complexity deepens with each listening. Buy it!
I've also purchased "Romance de Amor" which is extremely good as well (listen to her version of "Requerdos de la Alhambra" as compared to one of her heroes, John Williams on "The Guitarist"), but "Si Ji" is totally unique. Don't miss it.
As an aside, If you do end up buying and enjoying this CD, you might listen to Lily Afshar. The influence of her Persian heritage is similar in effect to "Si Ji" by Yang XueFei. Both artists have breathed life into the modern repertoire of guitar music.

Virtuoso playing and an unusual repetoire.......2005-10-26

I am a classical guitar student, and an over-the-top consumer. So I have a lot (many dozens) of classical guitar CDs. They are for the most part quite good, but they tend to blend. I might be able to distinguish Tennant's Rodrigo or Barrueco's Scarlatti, but too many guitarists play an awful lot of the same repetoire, and they play it quite similarly.

This CD is quite different. The pieces are all Asian in flavor and by composers I had never heard of. And they are quite beautiful. Ms. Yang appears to be quite young, so this could be the start of a long and interesting career. But at least one of the pieces was written for her, so she has already apparently developed a solid reputation.

Kreisler: Original Compositions & Arrangements

Average customer rating:

Kreisler: Original Compositions & Arrangements

Manufacturer: EMI Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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The Kreisler Album
The Complete Concerto Recordings, Vol. 1: Beethoven & Mendelssohn
Jascha Heifetz: The Supreme

ASIN: B000AQACW0
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Tracks:

Caprice Viennois
Tambourin Chinois
Schon Rosmarin
La Gitana
Liebesleid
Liebesfreud
Polichinelle
Rondino
La Precieuse
Chanson Louis XIII & Pavane
Scherzo
Gavotte
The Londonderry Air
Ballet No.2
The Old Refrain
Poupee Valsante
Andante Cantabile
Humoresque
Serenade Espagnole
Larghetto
Midnight Bells
Chanson Hindoue
Lotus Land
Danza Espagnola

CANTEMIR : Music in Istanbul and Ottoman Europe around 1700

Average customer rating:

Cantemir, Great Sultan, Louis XIV and Peter the Great
Worth exploring, but...
Excellent

CANTEMIR : Music in Istanbul and Ottoman Europe around 1700

Manufacturer: Golden Horn Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | International | Styles | Music

Turkey | Middle East | International | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

French | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

International Folk | International | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0001CVE8E
Release Date: 2004-01-30

Tracks:

Syrba - Moldavian Dance
Syrba - Moldavian Dance
Beraber Taksim - Collective Improvisation
Zhok de Nante - Moldavian Dance
Ostropesul - Moldavian Dance
Syrba with Taksim - Moldavian Dance
Bestenigar Taksim - Improvisation
Pesrev in makam Bestenigar - Dimitrie Cantemir
Tanbur Taksimi - Improvisation (tanbur solo)
Saz Semaisi in makam Neva / usul aksak semai (10/8) - Dimitrie Cantemir
Saz Semaisi in makam Rast / usul aksak semai - Dimitrie Cantemir
Syrbas - Moldavian Dances
KemenTaksimi - Improvisation (kemensolo)
In Honor of Prince Kantemir - Lou Harrison
Beraber Taksim - Collective Improvisation
Andante (from Concertino per Kemance, Violino Picolo 5 Instruments, 'In Honor of Kantemiro, 2000) - Yalcin Tura
A Turkish Air (Travels and Observations, 1738) Thomas Shaw (1694-1751)
Marche a la Turque (Pis de viole, Book V, 1725) Marin Marais (1656 - 1728)
Marche pour la cmonie des Turcs (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 1670) J-B. Lully (1632 - 1687)
The Turks' dance (Augurs, 1622) Ben Jonson (1572/3 - 1637)
New metar (The Dancing Master, 1665) John Playford (1623 - 1686)
Rast Taksim - Collective Improvisation
Pesrev in makam Rast / usul berefsan (16/8) Dimitrie Cantemir
Zhok de Nante - Moldavian Dance
Penh Taksim - Improvisation (kemensolo)
Saz semaisi in makam Penh / usul aksak semai (10/8) - yemai (6/8) - Bulgariaska (Floria 16) - yemai (6/8) - aksak semai (10/8) Dimitrie Cantemir and Moldavian Dance
H Taksim - Collective Improvisation (kemen baroque flute)
Pesrev in makam H - Dimitrie Cantemir
Buselik Taksim - Collective Improvisation
Pesrev in makam Buselik / usul devr-i-revan (14/16) Dimitrie Cantemir

Album Description

CANTEMIR honors the amazingly rich life of Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (Kantemiroglu, 1673-1723), born in Moldavia (now Romania) but educated in Istanbul, becoming during his many years at the heart of Ottoman culture a master musician, composer, linguist, and lexicographer. Sent home eventually to rule Moldavia as the representative of the Ottoman Empire, Cantemir betrayed the Sultan by attempting unsuccessfully with the aid of Tsar Peter the Great to liberate his people. In defeat, he fled with his court into exile in Russia.

Featured on the disc is Ihsan Ozgen, Linda Burman-Hall and the ensemble Lux Musica, in compositions in Ottoman classical style by Prince Cantemir, first recordings of new music honoring Kantemiroglu by Lou Harrison and Yalcin Tura, traditional and experimental improvisations, and Moldavian dance music. Ihsan Ozgen plays kemence (Turkish fiddle) and tanbur (Turkish lute). Linda Burman-Hall is playing early keyboards and bendir (frame drum).

Customer Reviews:

Cantemir, Great Sultan, Louis XIV and Peter the Great.......2006-07-30

Firstly, I want to thank Lux Musica and Ihsan Ozgen for recording such a beautiful exquisite album.
Moldavian prince Dmitrie Cantemir stood on cross-roads between the West, Russia and the Orient on the turning point of history - end of the 17th - beginning of 18th centuries. Philosopher, musician and musicologist, orientalist and politician - charismatic and interesting person.
Ihsan Ozgen and Lux Musica decided not to re-create authentic Turkish folk sound of Kantemir`s music, but to incorporate fantastic sound of Turkish string instrument kemence, which reminds crying human voice, and other Turkish instruments into the European ensemble Lux Musica (flute, violin, viola, lute, early guitar, percussion, harpsichord, virginal). Idea is to present the music by Kantemir as synthesis of European and Oriental cultural traditions, to imagine real concerts of his daughter Maria (who played harpsichord) in the court of Peter the Great in Russia, and to describe the cultural context of Kantemir`s music.
You would hear music by Kantemir himself, European "Turkish" style melodies of the 17th century by Lully (melody for famous play by Moliere "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme"), Marin Marais, Ben Johnson, Moldavian folk dances - so this programme wouldn`t be boring for you. I don`t agree with the previous reviewer - to listen to whole CD of authentic Turkish material - it`s a real hard work for European, Russian or American lover of classical music. That`s why I think that Ihsan Ozgen and Lux Musica were right.
So listen to this beautiful music and read a good novels by modern writers devoted to problems of relationships between Orient and Occident - try works by Amin Maalouf, Orhan Pamuk, Milorad Pavic.

Very beautiful album!

P.S. Addition to the text in the booklet. There stated that "Kantemir betrayed Sultan". Let`s be objective - history was more sophisticated. Don`t forget that Kantemir lived in Istanbul as the hostage to guarantee the loyalty of his native Moldavia to the Ottoman Empire. As he wrote in his memoirs, when he was selected by the Sultan to be a ruler of Moldavia, he was informed that he should make a "gift" to the Court - to pay a sum of money. And the sum of this "gift" was very high. Kantemir understood that he should raise the taxes in Moldavia to collect this money. So the choice was - to betray Sultan or to betray his native people. Ruler of Vallachia (modern Romania) sent a letter to Kantemir and invited him to join the revolt of the Orthodox Christians against the Ottoman rule. They secretly asked Tzar Peter the Great to help them. But when the Russian troops started their expedition, Vallachian ruler, who provoked Kantemir, informed Sultan about this revolt and of course rejected to participate in it. So Kantemir in 1711 had no other choice than to join Russian troops and after the unglorious end of this expedition (there were no any revolt) - Kantemir with his family fled to Russia. His life was saved by Peter the Great, because Ottoman powers demanded to return Kantemir to them (of course he would be killed) as condition of peace treaty with Russia.
His son Antoich became Russian poet and diplomate. In Paris he was close to writers and poets of the French Enlightenment.

Worth exploring, but..........2004-08-07

If you're coming to this out of curiosity, rather than as an Ottoman music fan, you may be more pleased with this disk than I was.

The best compositions here are those of Cantemir, the master himself. The folk dances are interesting, but they aren't on the same level of refinement. Cantemir was at the peak of a learned tradition. The juxtaposition with folk material might be justified if Cantemir had drawn on it for his compositions, but that's not the case; we're simply told that the peasants back near Cantemir's home in what is now Romania were playing these dances while Cantemir was off in Constantinople playing his stuff for the sultan. And the point is...? I would have preferred a disk purely of Cantemir pieces.

The music is well played, but I'm not totally sold on the mixture of eastern and western instruments. Obviously, it isn't authentic, but that isn't the problem; sometimes the mixture of instruments just doesn't work. One glowing exception is the neva saz semai, where the tanbur and harpsichord blend quite nicely.

Don't get me wrong; it's worth a listen. But if you already know the Ottoman classical tradition and some of Cantemir's works, be sure you know that you're getting an experimental "fusion" disk, not something traditional.

Excellent.......2004-03-27

This CD finally opens the long forgotten bridge to the early Ottoman music. Although in recent albums (for example, in "Dream of the Orient" by Concerto Koln and Sarband) there are some fine examples of Cantemir's work, this single album is fully dedicated to him.

The examples are carefully chosen to present early Ottoman and Cantemir's own music. The addition of the music from the composers of the West (some are recent, in honor of Cantemir), showing the influence of the Turkish music, is very nice and complementary.

Cantemir, as might be known, is the first musician/traveler/diplomat (and later a trouble maker) from Romania, who recorded the Ottoman music while he was living in the Ottoman lands for near twenty years.

Followed by composers such as Fux, Mozart, J. and M. Haydn brothers, Beethoven, Gluck, Rossini and many others, the Turkish music, its musical instruments (drums, cymbals and triangle, etc.) and themes became the most influential regional effect on the Western classical music for a few centuries.

Tracks:

Caprice Viennois. Op. 2
Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3
Schon Rosmarin
La Gitana
Liebesleid
Liebesfreud
Pollchinelle (Serenade)
Rondino On A Theme By Beethoven
La Precieuse (In The Style Of Couperin)
Chanson Louis XIII & Pavane (In The Style Couperin)
Scherzo alla Dittersdorf
Gavotte (Partita No. 3, BWV 1006)
The Londonderry Air
Ballet No. 2 ('Rosamunde', D. 797)
The Old Refrain
Poupee Valsante
Andante Cantabile (String Quartet No. 1)
Humoresque, Op. 101 No. 7
Serenade Espagnole, Op. 20 No. 2
Larghetto (Violin Sonata No. 1)
Midnight Bells ('Der Opernball')
Chanson Hindoue ('Sadko')
Lotus Land, Op. 47 No. 1
Danza Espanola ('La Vida Breve')

Customer Reviews:

Even better in the Great Recordings of the Century remastered edition.......2007-05-26

Potential purchasers might note that these performances have been remastered and reissued in EMI's Great Recordings of the Century series, and that CD is also available now via Amazon sellers, in some cases from less than $9.00, new.

THE Violinist.......2006-02-24

There is no one like Kreisler-perfect intonation and just beautiful sound from that instrument are his, without being mawkish or sentimental in his playing.

I prefer other composers' music, but he is a master on anything. To hear what a violin should sound like, listen to Kreisler!

Fritz Kreisler, the King of Violinists.......2003-11-14

Fritz Kreisler was definitly one of the most recognized and best violin player of all times,after Jascha Heifetz. Besides being well known by his compositions, he was a violin virtuoso.His great sense of melodie, made him compose and make wonderful arrangments, with a great importance for the violin repertoire. The sound of his playing in unmistakable, and has a very particular way to play his musics, like for example, the beautiful Schön Rosmarin, where the first notes, make so easy to recognize the Kreisler's playing. I recommend this CD to every violinists and specially to those that want to hear a Master of the Violin playing. Just great !

Listen to the Master.......2000-08-01

Kreisler was the one of greatest of his generation of violinists. This collection highlights his own compositions and transcriptions, and is a wonderful example of his playing style--very polished, refined, with a touch of humor when needed. A great disc, and a worthy addition to your collection, especially if you like historic recordings.

Fritz Kreisler is great!.......1999-07-21

I heard Tamborine Chinois on the Prairie Home Companion in their Towns Under 2000 Talent contest and really liked it. My son then started learning some other Kreisler songs and so I thought it would be great to hear the Master play his own music and I wasn't disappointed. My only regret is that I didn't get to hear Leibesleid years ago otherwise I would have studied violin over string bass.

The Music of Elliott Carter, Volume Five - Nine Compositions (1994-2002)

Average customer rating:

Carter continues to impress
Fantastic from the first piece
Vive le Carter!

The Music of Elliott Carter, Volume Five - Nine Compositions (1994-2002)

Manufacturer: Bridge
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Duets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

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The Music of Elliott Carter, Volume Four
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Elliott Carter: The Complete music for Piano
The Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 1: Vocal Works (1975-1981)

ASIN: B00009OLTI
Release Date: 2002-06-01

Tracks:

Steep Steps
Two Diversions
Two Diversions
Oboe Quartet
Figment No. 2 (Remembering Mr. Ives)
Au Quai
Of Challenge and of Love
Of Challenge and of Love
Of Challenge and of Love
Of Challenge and of Love
Of Challenge and of Love
Figment No. 1
Retrouvailles
Hiyoku

Album Description

Steep Steps* (2001) Virgil Blackwell, bass clarinet; Two Diversions (1999) Charles Rosen, piano; Oboe Quartet* (2001) Speculum Musicae; Figment No. 2 "Remembering Mr. Ives"* (2001) Fred Sherry, cello; Au Quai* (2002) Maureen Gallagher, viola, Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Of Challenge and of Love (1994) Tony Arnold, soprano; Jacob Greenberg, piano; Figment No. 1 (1994) Fred Sherry, cello; Retrouvailles (2000) Charles Rosen, piano; Hiyoku* (2001) Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima, clarinets

*Premiere recording

Volume Five of Bridge's ongoing Elliott Carter series contains five premiere recordings, including Carter's bracing Oboe Quartet of 2001. Performed by many of the leading Carter advocates of our time, this recording is a must for those interested in keeping up with the undimmed imagination and constant creative impulse of this American master, now well into his tenth decade. Also featured on this CD is a new recording of Carter's song cycle Of Challenge and of Love, performed by the brilliant young American soprano Tony Arnold, the recent first prize winner of the Gaudeamus International competition for interpreters of contemporary music. Rounding out this CD are a series of instrumental miniatures played by dedicatees Virgil Blackwell, Charles Neidich, Ayako Oshima and Fred Sherry. In addition, the pianist Charles Rosen adds on to his earlier (almost) "Complete Piano Music of Carter" CD (BRIDGE 9090) with the Two Diversions, and Retrouvailles.

Volume one: BRIDGE 9014
Volume two: BRIDGE 9044
Volume three: BRIDGE 9090 (Grammy nomination)
Volume four: BRIDGE 9111 (Grammy nomination)

Customer Reviews:

Carter continues to impress.......2006-06-27

This disc, containing seven short works and two longer ones dating from Carter's late eighties and early nineties, continues Bridge's invaluable series of recordings of works by this modern American master. As with all Bridge's recordings, the performers are almost always musicians with a long history of performing Carter's music (here including the group Speculum Musicae, the cellist Fred Sherry and the pianist Charles Rosen), and this certainly helps to give the performances an authoritative air.

The disc starts with a bang--Carter's bass clarinet solo Steep Steps (so titled because of the importance of leaps of a twelfth in the composition). This is a vigorous and highly enjoyable work that provides an ideal disc opener. More dry are the Two Diversions, two pieces for the advanced piano student. These two works complement each other well; the first simpler, the second rhythmically complex.

The Oboe Quartet is one of Carter's more important recent scores. Written in a single multi-section movement, it alternates between tutti passages and duets for pairs of instruments, and demonstrates (as does much of Carter's recent music) that a strictly atonal style need not reduce a composer's capacity for lyricism. If I'm not sure that Speculum Musicae's performance here quite matches the intensity of Holliger and friends on ECM, this is still a fine reading of a significant work.

The disc then returns to a couple of miniatures. Figment No 2 for solo cello is one of a series of works in which Carter pays homage to musical figures important to him when he was younger, and though there are no obvious stylistic references to Ives, the work does include fragmentary quotations and hints of hymnic writing. Au Quai, by contrast, is a tribute to a composer and conductor who has done so much for Carter's own music--Oliver Knussen, on his 50th birthday. Written for the unusual combination of viola and bassoon, this is a delightful, charming miniature with a wonderfully sense of timing.

Returning to major works, once again, Of Challenge and of Love is one of Carter's many recent song cycles (though the only mature work of his for voice and piano). A setting of five poems by John Hollander, this builds to an expressive climax in the lengthy fourth poem, Quatrains from Harp Lake, before the almost anticlimactic close, End of a Chapter. Having only heard this work though Lucy Shelton's premiere recording on Koch, I found much more warmth in it in this reading, with the fine Tony Arnold the soprano soloist, though I don't think it will ever rank amongst my favourite late Carter works.

The disc ends with three more miniatures. Figment No 1 for solo cello is one of Carter's finest short works, ranging over the whole expressive gamut despite being based entirely on one short idea. Retrouvailles is a brief and comparatively simple (for Carter, at least) study for piano, written for Pierre Boulez's 75th birthday, while Hiyoku, a duet for two clarinets, effectively explores the contrast between the two instruments playing similar and different material.

This is another impressive release in Bridge's Carter series. Lovers of the composer's music will not hesitate to snap it up.

Fantastic from the first piece.......2006-01-22

Carter lets the bass clarinet show off every bit of its range in Steep Steps, from soulful low bass lines, through a smoky lower-midrange area, to an almost sax-like upper register.

All the cellos pieces are great, and the oboe quartet? The other reviewer nailed it; it's like the oboe is playing the lead violin line.

Vive le Carter!.......2003-07-07

The fifth offering in Bridge's indispensible series of the music of Elliott Carter contains nine compositions written from 1994 to 2002, when the composer, incredibly, was between the ages of 85 and 93. There are the usual short gems for various instruments that Carter has made a specialty in recent years. The disk begins with the fascinating "Steep Steps" for solo bass clarinet, an instrument Carter has exploited to great effect in his Piano Concerto and Triple Duo. Fred Sherry delivers a haunting rendition of "Figment No. 2" for solo cello. Subtitled "Remembering Mr. Ives" (Carter first met Ives as a teenager), the piece conveys a nostalgia rare in Carter's work, with short phrases evoking, though not quoting, the kind of hymns Ives used in his music. The Two Diversions for Piano are more transparent than some of Carter's other piano pieces, and rightfully so, since they were written for the Millenium Piano Book for pianists of intermediate skills. Charles Rosen, a long-time Carter champion, provides tender and beautiful readings. Soprano Tony Arnold's rendition of the song cycle "Of Challenge and of Love" seems softer and less forced than Lucy Shelton's premiere recording, which is all to the good, but for me the highlight of the disk is the Oboe Quartet, a major 14-minute work that shows Carter at the top of his instrumental game. Despite its unrepentant modernist idiom, this composition has a classical elegance, a romantic sensuousness, and a Baroque richness of counterpoint that doesn't showcase the soloist as much as make him a first among equals. It is as though the composer had written a new string quartet with the oboe subbing for the first violin. I could not wish for a better performance.
More!

Average customer rating:

Even more beautiful than Volume 1
Great Recording A Classic

Chinese Traditional Erhu Music 2
Lei Quiang
Manufacturer: Oliver Sudden Prod
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

China | Far East & Asia | International | Styles | Music

General | Far East & Asia | International | Styles | Music

General | International | Styles | Music

World Dance | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | International | Indie Music | Stores | Music
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Chinese Traditional Erhu Music Vol. 1
Spirit on Two Strings
The Art of the Chinese Erhu
Chinese Traditional Pipa Music
Eleven Centuries of Traditional Music of China

ASIN: B00000JFPK
Release Date: 1997-10-27

Tracks:

Muleter
Embroidered Pouch
Song from Shangdong
The Menjiang Girl
The Four Seasons
Flower Drum
Amazing Red Sun
Lullaby
The Hill Looks Like A Bottle
Dating
Buterfly Lovers
Picking Flowers
The Faraway Place
Thinking of the Past
Rendezvous in the Yurt
The Faraway Voice
Cresent Moon Before Dawn
Morning Star Lily
Nostalgia

Album Description

Lei Qiang performs instrumental pieces on the erhu, a two- stringed violin-like instrument, with the Shaanxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe. This collection of 19 traditional Chinese compositions captures the erhu's expressive mystical sound. Detailed liner notes in English. French and Chinese.

Customer Reviews:

Even more beautiful than Volume 1.......2006-07-03

I didn't think it was possible to top Chinese Traditional Erhu Volume 1 but this cd does. This music is good for the soul!

Great Recording A Classic.......2002-01-12

I saw Lei Qiang perform at the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque a few years back. He is awesome. This CD is excellent. I play this CD all the time. It soothes my day.
If you are looking for a little heaven in your day, then this is it.

Roslavets Piano Music / Marc-André Hamelin

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A valuable disc
(No title).
Roslavets solo works
Fantastic
a hidden revolutionary of piano music,Hamelin is superb

Roslavets Piano Music / Marc-André Hamelin
Nikolay Andreyevich Roslavets , and Marc-André Hamelin
Manufacturer: Hyperion UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Etudes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
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Alkan: Symphony for solo piano

ASIN: B000002ZZ0
Release Date: 1997-06-10

Tracks:

Three Compositions: Adagio (Nobilissimo)
Three Compositions: Agitato con passione
Three Compositions: Allegretto grazioso
Three Etudes: Affetamente
Three Etudes: ('Pianissimo') Con dolce maniera
Three Etudes: Burlando
Piano Sonata No. 1
Prelude: Largo
Two Compositions: Quasi Prelude: Tres modere
Two Compositions: Quasi Poeme: Lent
Piano Sonata No. 2
Two Poems: Allegretto - Fervido
Two Poems: Moderato - Sempre poco rubato
Five Preludes: Andante affetuoso
Five Preludes: Allegretto con moto
Five Preludes: Lento
Five Preludes: Lento
Five Preludes: Lento - Rubato
Piano Sonata No. 5

Customer Reviews:

A valuable disc.......2006-07-24

This is one of the discs that I treasure. Not only is the music beyond obscure, some of it is at the pinnacle of the "classical" genre, and the performances are practically faultless--better than his Scriabin. Roslavets' Three Etudes are the highlight of this disc, with the 5th sonata close behind. The Three Compositions and the other two sonatas are wonderful as well. This disc isn't for "Mozart, Vivaldi, or nothing" folks. But, it is for anyone who can find late Scriabin appealing. Roslavets is Scriabin's closest descendant, musically (his music seemed to start where Scriabin's Op. 74 Preludes stopped), and he progresses into a new space, one that's all his own.

(No title)........2000-12-07

This unjustly neglected music, a chaste mix of Scriabin, Scoenberg, Hauer, Ravel, and Busoni, but in a world of its own, rarely free of intellectual luxuriances, indulgence, or necrophiliac dalliances, and even more rarely cultivating a clarity of line, upon multiple listenings, remains undeniably powerful, fascinating, and intriguing. As usual, Hamelin makes his way with amazingly superhuman apomb through the heiroglyphic proliferation and rhythmic interplay so intricate that few pianists have the ability to decipher them let alone blend their sonorities so finely!

Roslavets solo works.......2000-10-29

The music of Nikolai Roslavets (1881 - 1944) is heavily, almost drearily, impressionistic, drawing on the worst of both Debussy and Scriabin. Roslavets developed and followed his own opaque system of tonal organization, which was never explained to or understood by anyone, including possibly the composer himself.

The short pieces on this disc make extensive use of the delicate washes and sweeps of tone that Debussy exploited in his well-known works. The piano is used in a similar pointillistic way to minimize its percussive character by avoiding definite rhythms and cramming odd numbers of notes into legato lines. But Roslavets' tonal sense is nothing like Debussy's. It is alien and forbidding, a sort of suprematist abstract impressionism. Expressionist music here is built with impressionist devices.

No themes are apparent here, even in the Sonatas, where some development and variations can be discerned, though I was never sure about what was being developed. The little tone poems make wonderful background music. They were not at all intrusive as long as I didn't pay attention and try to make sense of things. While at times the music shows hints of structure, it never arrives and its emotional direction and goals are generally unclear.

The Sonata #1 is a very delicate thing, constructed out of fragmentary motifs and nothing like a melody. In some places it builds in intensity, to a high pitch and density, and then leaves it hanging and returns to mid-range noodling. This has echoes of Sorabji's lush chromaticism and exotica without the passion and daring of that composer.

I would buy a disc of Hamelin playing Plastic Bertrand, and I found much to admire in his playing here. This music is in fact very complex, and in an unconventional notation. Hamelin finds his way through all of it, always in control, with the technical resources to span the range of moods. It's not his typical material, but challenging in its own peculiar way. This music has been disparaged as "etiolated Scriabin" and even Hamelin can only give us the pale pastels, and does not try to supply bright colors. This recording is valuable in that it gives us one more clue as to how Hamelin would sound playing Sorabji, something I would dearly love to hear. The recording is clear, if somewhat reverberant, not very different from Hyperion's other studio efforts with this pianist.

Fantastic.......2000-06-28

Who should get this disc? Anyone interested in worthwhile pianorepertoire off the beaten track. It is so difficult to play that you are unlikely to just bump into it on an average recital prgramme. If you like Scriabin, Szymanowski, Sorabji, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev or even Debussy, you'll find a lot here to enjoy. A bit more abstract perhaps than Scriabin, a very colourful harmonic language. As for the playing, it sounds magnificent, I can not imagine a more persuasive performer

a hidden revolutionary of piano music,Hamelin is superb.......1999-06-30

Nikolay Roslavets(1881-1944), is a forgotten master who was part of the progressive artistic community that welcomed the 1917 Revolution.It seems this generation of composers (Mosolov,Wyshnegradsky) with the darkness of what became of Russia are only now being discovered .Roslavets significant works are for the piano, for which Hamelin, an untiring instigator of the pianos neglected repertoire always performs. If you never heard Roslavets you will see how relatively homogenized and one-dimensional the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich can be by comparison. "Three Compositions" proclaims a strong structural durability in sculpting three contrasting ideas always in a state of hightened virtuosity where the brilliance and brightness of sound, encrusted in low and high piano registers are projected.The middle piece here takes on a the structural challenge of miniature form"Agitato con passione" a mere 41 seconds. Also the "Three Etudes" are overwhelming at times bursting their classical frames it seems in ongoing ostinati-like ideas with piercing cascades of high register moments.But you always sense taut control,in that Roslavets had his own theories on atonality quite independent of The Schoenberg School. As much as you try Roslavets does not fit neatly into other creative influence,perhaps Debussy or Scriabin,but not really,Roslavets has his own voice. Again Hamelin ignites anything he plays ,reflecting gently wherever necessary,and bringing a sense of each works uniqueness. Over the course of this CD,Hamelin renders the full emotive scope of Roslavets. Even though all the works are for piano solo, you sense different creative dimensions,no repetition of creative thinking.

New Music - Piano Compositions By Henry Cowell / Brown, Hays, Kubera, Cahill

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New Music - Piano Compositions By Henry Cowell / Brown, Hays, Kubera, Cahill

Manufacturer: New Albion Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Dances | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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Schoenberg: Piano Works

ASIN: B000003TM6
Release Date: 1999-06-22

Tracks:

Dynamic Motion (1914)
What's This? (1914)
Amiable Conversation (1917)
Advertisement (1914)
Antimony (1914)
Timetable
The Banshee (c. 1925)
Exultation (1919)
Tides Of Manaunaun (c. 1912)
Aeolian Harp (1923)
Hero Sun
Fabric (1917)
Lilt of the Reel (1925)
Nine Ings (1922) - Floating
Nine Ings - Frisking
Nine Ings - Fleeting
Nine Ings - Scooting
Nine Ings - Wafting
Nine Ings - Seething
Nine Ings - Whisking
Nine Ings - Sneaking
Nine Ings - Swaying
Slow Jig (1925)
The Fairy Answer (1929)
Set of Two Movements - Deep Color
Set of Two Movements - High Color

Amazon.com

When you hear the methodical full-body slams (or so they seem) delivered by pianist Chris Brown on Henry Cowell's Dynamic Motion, it amazes that the composer scripted the piece in 1914. Exactly when the world was hitting its modern stride, when speed was vital, Cowell was plunging listeners into the most dense piano music ever composed, even using the term cluster to describe how the piano ought to be played in his works. This collection of 26 Cowell pieces focuses on the easily contained modern era, all of it composed before 1930 and most before 1925. Don't let that mislead you, though; these are some of American music's most maverick moments, times when Cowell made himself perfectly clear in declaring a new language for the keyboard. The pieces, while resolutely American in their declarative, independent character, are also painfully lovely, each suggesting (and many making abundantly clear) the profusion of tonal and atonal possibilities in different clusters. The performers are an adventurous lot, with Brown and Joseph Kubera the best known. But Sorrel Hays and Sarah Cahill do equally tremendous things with these works, exploding them for their full interpretive potential (as Cowell would want). This is one of the great piano-music releases of the 1990s, intrepid and sonically outstanding. --Andrew Bartlett

21 Organ Works - Horatio Parker / Ahlstrom

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21 Organ Works - Horatio Parker / Ahlstrom
Albert Ahlstrom
Manufacturer: Raven Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000004AMC
Release Date: 1995-12-12

Tracks:

Concert-Piece No.2, Op.28, No.2
Canzonetta, Op.36, No.2
Org Son in e, Op.65
Wedding Song, Op.20, No.2
Pastorale, Op.28, No.3
Arietta, Op. 28, No.3
Postlude, Op.66, No.4
Novelette, Op.68, No.3
Romanza, Op.17, No.3
Risoluto, Op.68, No.5
Slumber-Song, Op.68, No.2
Festival Prld, Op.66, No.1
Scherzino, Op.66, No.3
Impromptu, Op.17, No.2
Eclogue, Op.36, No.4
Revery, Op.66, No.2
Fant, Op.20, No.4
Melody And Intermezzo, Op.20, No.3
Fugue, Op.36, No.3
Canon In The Fifth, op.68, No.2
Concert-Piece No.1, Op.17, No.2

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On Lincoln Place

Manufacturer: Viridiana
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

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Ragtime | Traditional Jazz & Ragtime | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000G2JK
Release Date: 1998-12-08

Tracks:

On Lincoln Place
Ste Otono: El Caminito
Ste Otono: Crepusculo
Ste Otono: Patricia
The Journey Home: Interlude #9
Rhap For Ernesto Lecuona
Chor in f
Waltz
Belasco
Out From The Arms Of Morpheus

Jazz Music:

Jazz Music

Jazz Music