45 Results for : sonorities
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Chouchane Siranossian - Bach before Bach
Leonardo García Alarcón (Cembalo) - Balazs Maté (Cello) // In the Europe of the first half of the seventeenth century, instrumental music became a source of sonic and expressive experimentation. Influenced by vocal rhetoric, composers sought to replace words with a new musical language. The virtuosity of the instrumentalists developed, as did invention, improvisation and the search for surprising sonorities.- Shop: odax
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Out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light / Various
Here is sacred music that, instead of remaining hushed and devotional, kicks up a storm... Saul's tonal language mixes knife-like dissonances with luxurious nineteenth-century sonorities. Each work is big, dramatically taut, and filled with ideas. --David Stabler in The Oregonian.- Shop: odax
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Kosmogonia
PIANO DIARIES OF A MUSICAL ALCHEMIST Every single composition on this CD represents a time capsule from my life. Each piece I played and recorded on a different piano, in a different city, and in a different period of my life. In all of the pieces I applied the method I call 'preparation in real time'-the personal performance practice I often use in my live performances. It implies using devices, easily movable objects, and different fingerings to temporarily shift the instrument's timbre from that of the piano to that of a harpsichord or clavichord. For instance, in Genesis (2009) and Kosmogonia (Cosmogony) (2005), following the proverb 'necessity is mother of invention,' I came up with a vibrating glove. When placed on the piano strings, the electromagnets stuffed into the glove's fingertips helped create the sostenuto-sounding strings, mockup flute sounds, and bass clarinet I needed. Mappa della Memoria, for acoustic baby grand piano, was recorded live during my recital at the Bogliasco Foundation in Genoa, Italy, where I held a composer's residency in 2004. Based on the eponymous work by the ingenious Italian visual artist Mario Fallini, the Memory Map is a fitting piece to start this album with. Like a traveler who retraces his own footsteps, Fallini draws his version of the iconic medieval allegory of memory, traditionally depicted as a portly matron in elaborate dress, by 'stitching' the titles of his own works in each fold of her sumptuous attire. Sonatina No.1 was composed in 1996 and recorded in 1997 on an upright piano after I rescued it from the local bar and somehow fit it into the kitchen of my studio apartment in Manhattan. I dedicated this piece to Morpho, a large, mysterious South American butterfly with iridescent wings who lives for only a day before being sealed for eternity into a pendant by a jewelry maker. Sonatina No.2 and Sonatina No.3 were composed in 2004 and recorded on an amplified Chinese-made baby grand piano I purchased at a liquidation sale at the San Francisco Opera. In the already-mentioned Genesis, I wondered what it sounded like when God went about making the world. During my college years, while sitting in the symphony orchestra and counting numerous empty bars in my harp parts, I entertained the idea of getting a job in a planetarium. I recalled that fantasy many years later in Kosmogonia, where I explore the ways to depict in sound the mindboggling theory of the ever-expanding universe. This album is dedicated to my dad, Dr. Vladimir Jordano MD. Victoria Jordanova Los Angeles, May 2012 Notes by Dean Suzuki Victoria Jordanova, an American composer born in Kragujevac, Serbia, is probably best known for her magnificent Requiem for Bosnia for broken piano, harp and child's voice. The current CD is her first for piano since the release of the Requiem in 1994. Unlike the Requiem, which exists only as a recording and cannot be performed live (the namesake broken piano no longer exists), Kosmogonia is comprised of works that can be performed in concert. Born in Serbia, a longtime San Francisco resident, and now living in Los Angeles, Jordanova's aesthetic forebears include West Coast American experimentalists and mavericks, Henry Cowell and John Cage. She is inspired by their innovative piano compositions, and especially by Cowell's 'string piano' (when performers bypass the piano's keyboard and play directly on the strings, variously plucking, strumming, rubbing and otherwise manipulating them), as well as his generous use of tone clusters, and Cage's 'prepared piano,' inspired by and extrapolated from Cowell's string piano, in which items such as screws, bolts, bits of rubber and other materials are inserted and wedged between the strings, thus dramatically transforming the instrument's timbre. It should be no surprise that other important influences on Jodanova include Krzysztof Penderecki and György Ligeti, both composers who experimented with and explored sound masses, unorthodox timbres, and unconventional musical textures and techniques. In an undergraduate class taught by composition professor Dr. Jere Hutcheson, Jodanova encountered Penderecki's Kosmogonia (1970) (a work that inspired her own work of the same title found on this CD), Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960) and Ligeti's Atmospheres (1961). The music left her awestruck. Such inspiration is borne out when Jordanova states that she uses a computer and MIDI-instruments to compose, 'But whenever I really want to test an idea, only the piano will do. I open it, knock on it, touch every part of it, play it inside and out, amplify it to hear it's softest whispers, and present it with all kinds of toys and devices to coax every possible sound out of it. And it always gives back more than I expect, surprising me with new sounds and possibilities.' Jordanova's wide-open ears are on a never-ending quest for new sounds, timbres and sonorities. She says, 'Some of the best times of my life were spent with pianos. I have played many pianos in my life and I've never found one I didn't like. From the old upright, which never could be tuned properly, that I rescued from a local bar and worked on in my Manhattan apartment, to the one that fell down two flights of stairs in the French-American International School in San Francisco, which I used to record my Requiem-all gave me something unique. Sometimes I feel that there is more at play than a mere material object, as in the medieval concept of Anima mundi--a pure, ethereal spirit diffused throughout all nature that animates all matter in the same sense in which the soul was thought to animate the human.' She concludes with a rather cunning and insightful proposal: 'Maybe the piano participates in my compositions as much as I do.' In her Sonatina no. 1 for upright antique piano, Jordanova coaxes beautiful sounds from an instrument that would have horrified Chopin and would be considered beneath contempt by contemporary concert pianists (can one imagine Lang Lang performing on an upright piano, much less an antique one?). Instead of regarding the faults of the antique piano as shortcomings, she views them as opportunities for sonic exploration. Indeed, the Sonatina would be a completely different and much less successful work were it played on a pristine concert grand. Those familiar with the string piano and prepared piano, and with works by composers such as Stephen Scott who also use extended techniques on the instrument, including 'bowing' the strings (for example, strands of rosined nylon fishing line are threaded under the strings then drawn back and forth to excite the strings), will recognized the instrument as a piano, but may be bewildered by the manner of sound generation in Genesis and Kosmogonia. These compositions require a vibrating glove, in which small electromagnets are placed in the fingertips. Jordanova does not insert her hand in the glove to stroke or massage the strings. Rather, she uses the glove as a holder for the electromagnets, which are placed directly on the strings. Further manipulation, including use of the keyboard, sustain pedal and touching the string with the fingers, changes the overtone structure for the purpose of discovering new timbres and advancing the music. The amplification employed in several works on this CD is used only to precisely reveal the subtleties and nuances of the piano, rather than to increase power and volume. By running the sound from the microphone directly into the computer input, the normal recording studio problems of trying to accurately capture acoustic sound are circumvented. The amplification and recording techniques allow the listener to hear everything--harmonics, partials and other acoustic phenomena--in a way that would not be possible using traditional recording methods. As a result, one hears the music differently and in a way that enhances Jordanova's compositions and reveals her special gifts. Dean Suzuki Associate Professor of music- Shop: odax
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Pebbles in the Pond
BIO Pat Waltman Feuchtenberger holds a Bachelor of Music from the St. Louis Institute of Music, a Master of Arts, from Radford University, and has pursued post graduate studies in various universities. Her teachers include Lois Baptiste Harsh, Evelyn Mitchell, Leo Sirota, Miklos Ivanich, and Lloyd Zurbrigg. She has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in the Midwest and Southeast. She established Feuchtenberger Artists' Management Company in 1983. This company has become well-known internationally, representing pianists, Enrique Graf, Beatrice Long, and the Long Duo, with sisters, Beatrice and Christina Long. She has held faculty positions at Concord College at Athens, WV. and Bluefield College in Bluefield, Virginia, where she founded the Bluefield College Preparatory Department. She continues to teach privately. Besides serving as the Director of Feuchtenberger Management, she is an adjudicator for various festivals and competitions, and is a member of the International Society of Performing Arts, American Symphony Orchestra League, National Association of Performing Arts Managers and Presenters, National College of Musicians, Virginia Music Teachers Association, Virginia Federation of Music Clubs, and Phi Kappa Phi. In 2005 Pat formed the Black and White Classics Recording Company to provide an artist-friendly recording experience emphasizing integrity in music, artists, and engineering. She made the first compact disk, "Pebbles in the Pond," which includes music of Bach, Scarlatti, Debussy, Chopin, and Gershwin. She is a consultant for performing arts and arts management, and a speaker in colleges for career days, representing the performing arts. She is listed in Who's Who in the World, and Who's Who in Entertainment, has been the subject of several interviews as WGMS in D. C. and articles in magazines such as Radford Magazine, A Music Partnership, and newspapers. She was nominated in 2000 for The Governor's Award for the Arts in Virginia. She was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, and has three sons, and four granddaughters. She enjoys family, music, travel, gardening, reading, cooking, walking, especially in the mountains, people. NOTES Pebbles in the Pond Music can be but a small speck in the scheme of things, but still make a profound influence heard 'round the world. The exceptional characteristic about classical music is there is no right or wrong way to listen to it, and no one dictates what you should hear. It depends on what is in your life to relate to it. That is the correct interpretation for you. As Charlie Parker said: "Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Of course, it is a little like eating peanuts, the more you try it, the more you enjoy it. Reflections on the Water has been one of my favorite pieces to play for many years, and audiences have always loved it. It invites us to imagine all kinds of water-fountains, pools, great oceans, sprays with the sun glistening, and a trip back to childhood, throwing pebbles in the pond to watch the ripples grow in outward, in ever enlarging circles. Debussy's impressionistic sounds conjure images similar to the paintings of Renoir, Manet, and Monet. He was influenced by American jazz, and his music had a profound influence on all composers after him. The music of Scarlatti was such fun to work on after doing Chopin and Gerswhin, just like a refreshing dip in a pool, after the steamy summer day. Scarlatti's sound reflects the cool blue of the Mediterranean, and simple joys of life. Unique usage of dissonance, and remarkably original sonorities, deep expressive range, from humor and wit to passions and despair. The Sonata in F Minor represents one of Scarlatti's more thoughtful, quiet pieces which constantly seems to reach upward, striving for an unknown sublime entity only the listener can understand for himself. Chopin wrote music that changed the way the world wrote music, heard music, and performed music. Considering he found the piano complete for the expression of his creative spirit, pianists revel in his music, and audiences have responded to that love. It was not always so. His editors told him, his music was "too difficult," and people couldn't read it. Indeed, if one approaches Chopin's music with a mind set on a classical style, it is pretty dreadful! And so, we change gears, and enter into the Romantic mode, where we have lyrical phrases, influenced by Chopin's admiration of Bach's music, love of the opera, flowing accompaniments, full use of the piano including pedaling which becomes an art in itself, and importantly, we must enter into the heart and mind of the composer to communicate his feelings to the listeners. Many find Chopin at his best in his small pieces, and so I have chosen an unusual Nocturne-one which has a surprise ending, a Mazurka not too often heard, and the lovely Etude in E Major, which is said to be a melody Chopin claimed to be his best, along with the Waltz in G Flat. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue by Bach is a piece sometimes avoided by performers and teachers, because it takes a good deal of research to come up with what the performer believes is a credible version. I used three editions, listened to several recordings, and referred to some notes from Evelyn Mitchell, a fine teacher who had been a child prodigy and studied with Maurice Rosenthal. The Fantasy progresses through chromatic chords and cadenza-like runs which are a real trip! Going back to the Urtext edition, it is easier to understand the structure which Bach uses to create his improvisations. The Fugue begins with a soft, noble subject in the right hand and progresses relentlessly to a majestic finale with octaves using the whole keyboard. . George Gershwin, one of America's greatest composers, died at the age of 39. He was a talented pianist, who made his way on Tin Pan Alley at the age of 15. He could sight read anything put in front of him, and transpose it, and then improvise on it. He had large hands and much of his music contains intervals of 10ths and 12ths. These three Preludes were written to bring the syncopation and craggy rhythms and lyrical blues of jazz to the concert stage and reach "serious" audiences. "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." (Red Auerbach (1812 - 1882) and quoted again by Pat Conroy -and now, by me. It is my deepest wish that those who hear this music experience some of what I felt in making this CD -no worries, no fears-I was invincible. I felt connected -to the past and the present. Happy Listening! Pat.- Shop: odax
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Scott Blasco: Queen of Heaven
In his lively polemic 'The Blind Watchmaker,' Richard Dawkins noted that there is a common cliché "which says that you cannot get out of computers any more than you put in." This cliché rings true for many musicians who, primarily due to the prejudice of training, look askance at computer-generated sounds and those who produce them. Since the mid-20th century, many musicians have therefore dismissed electronic music as so many beeps and bobbles that would never approach the realm of true art created by living musicians who put themselves into their performances. However Dawkins has an answer for that criticism immediately following his recitation of the platitude: "The cliché is true only in the crashingly trivial sense, the same sense in which Shakespeare never wrote anything except what his first schoolteacher taught him to write - words." I purposefully invoke Dawkins at the outset of these notes because he would chafe at the other touchstone for Scott Blasco's masterful Queen of Heaven - religion. Dawkins' screeds against religion began appearing in the 1980s, thirty years after musicians began rejecting not only electronically generated sounds, but religion's place in musical composition. This move reflected an increasing secularization and renewed focus on individualism throughout society that caused many cultural observers to predict that religion and participation in religious life would gradually dry up by the 20th century's end. That it has not is due in part (surely to Dawkins' chagrin and Blasco's delight) to art. As sociologist Robert Wuthnow persuasively argued in All in Sync, "One of the most important reasons that spirituality seems so pervasive in American culture is the publicity it receives because of it's presence in the arts." Scott Blasco is of a new generation of composers who are bucking long-held tenets that spirituality is off limits and objectivity reigns in electronic composition. Coming to his deeply held Catholicism following a degree in Theology and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary and years studying early Church history, doctrine, and canon formation, Blasco infuses his music with a perspective of the world as divinely inspired and infused but grounded in humanity. This focus on the human aspect includes regular pairing of electronics and human performers and surely drew Kari Johnson to commission Queen of Heaven and collaborate on it's creation. Johnson, a rising young pianist with a keen ear toward the nuances of merging acoustic and electroacoustic sounds, helped shape a work that is definitively a piano work that happens to interact with electronics. In each movement save the fifth, the electronics follow Johnson's pacing, giving the warmth and spontaneity expected in a live performance but rarely heard in an electronic one. Also breathing humanity into Queen of Heaven is Blasco's stated desire to "subjectively and symbolically express my study and experience of scriptural, liturgical and iconographic sources relating to different aspects of Mary's unique place in Christian theology." His deep reading of the Church fathers led to a structure that mirrors Mary's position in liturgical (Catholic) and iconographical (Orthodox) sources and mirrors his own hope for an eventual rapprochement between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, returning to a true catholic (universal) church. Movement 1, "Hail, Holy Queen!" details Mary's Assumption and Coronation. Dense, dissonant piano chords in the instrument and the electronics evoke the terrifying angelic voices before fading away to reflect on the mystery of Mary's position. Movement 2, "Full-of-Grace (Kecharitomene)," focuses on her Annunciation, particularly the two conceptions - Mary's Immaculate Conception and Jesus's virgin one. Blasco provides both conceptions with their own tonal, yet unresolved, melodies and interweaves them, showing their connection in our perception of Mary. Movement 3, "The Unburnt Bush," explores Christ's Incarnation through Mary's pregnancy. The sound of fire, at first unprocessed, but slowly taking on the electronics' sonorities (centered around the pitch B), is the fire that burns without consuming. By the time the piano also takes the B from the electronics, it is clear that the fire is also Christ's renewing the Imago Dei by reversing sin's destruction. Movement 4, "The-One-Who-Gives-Birth-to-God (Theotokos)," is Queen of Heaven's timeless movement, it's gently rocking piano ostinato creating both the awe and the peace of Mary's impression of Jesus's birth. But where the fourth movement suspends us in time with it's repetition, Movement 5, "The Woman Clothed with the Sun," with it's endless ringing bells and piano figuration, places us in a ritual, a liturgy of the woman in Revelation 12. With it's eight-beat pattern (a clear reference to eternity) juxtaposed against a nine-beat recurrence of chords (it's three times three length indicating the Trinity), the movement ends in a Messiaen-like fashion by pulling us into Heaven. With it's liturgical structure and careful balancing of the human and the electronic, Scott Blasco created a work that uses basic materials - the "words" of music - to rise above traditional clichés about electronic and religious music. Here is a work neither cold nor blatant, that convinces rather than browbeats. Blasco and Johnson persuade us that personal expression of deeply held religious convictions will always speak strongly, have a place in our culture, and bring us to new belief. It all leads me to conclude that Robert Wuthnow was not completely correct in his analysis of why spirituality is so tenacious in American culture. He neglected to note that music is perhaps the most powerful theology of all. S. Andrew Granade, January 2012 credits released 31 January 2012 Scott Blasco is a composer and sound artist currently residing in Washington state. He is a board member of the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) and a founding member of and performer with the Kansas City-area electroacoustic new music ensemble The Digital Honkbox Revival. Scott currently teaches music theory, composition, and electronic music at Washington State University. He received his doctorate in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and studied music at Calvin College and Western Michigan University. He also holds a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Kari Johnson is the Director of Keyboard Studies at Avila University in Kansas City. Ms. Johnson is an active performer, her playing is known for it's firm musicality and dramatic flair. She is a strong supporter of new music, and has been heard as a soloist and collaborator at festivals including SEAMUS 2010 and 2011, the ElectroAcoustic Juke Joint, and the University of Central Missouri and University of Nebraska-Kearney new music festivals. In 2011 she was a featured artist for the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance concert series and the 2011 Thailand International Composition Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She holds degrees from Central Missouri State University, Bowling Green State University in Ohio, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.- Shop: odax
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Sacred Choruses/Choeurs Sacras
Robert Ingari "Sacred Choruses" Robert Ingari is the director of choral activities at l'Université de Sherbrooke, Quebec, where he has developed a unique and innovative French-speaking masters degree program in choral conducting. He is also the artistic director of l'École d'été de chant choral, a week-long summer choral intensive where his students, joined by choristers from around Quebec, study, prepare and perform choral repertoire of all styles and periods. Before coming to l'Université de Sherbrooke, he was an assistant professor at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal where he conducted choral ensembles and taught conducting. Ingari is an active choral clinician and guest conductor, sought after for his pedagogical ingenuity and dynamic approach to choral rehearsing. As a composer, Ingari has composed choral works of varying styles and difficulty for unaccompanied voices as well as works for choir and instrumental accompaniment including keyboard, marimba, string orchestra and chamber orchestra. His music has been praised for it's lyricism, rich sonorities and expressive power. Notes Psalm 23, composed in 2006 for Le Choeur Classique de Montréal, is a cantata in five movements for soprano and tenor soloists, choir and string orchestra. The first movement, which sets the first three lines of the psalm, is a slow movement for chorus and orchestra, whose poignant dissonances and widely spaced chords express the calm assurance of the text. In the second movement for two soloists, the pizzicato in the strings evokes a slow, determined march to the text "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil". In "Prayers", the central movement played by the orchestra alone, we hear a regal accompaniment, which turns around a series of rising and falling melodic arches played by the violins giving a sense of pleading and questioning. The counterpoint and soaring melodies of the fourth and fifth movements make for an emotionally charged tour de force where choir, soloists and orchestra unite in a Handelian display of grandeur to express the final lines of the psalm. Three pieces for choir and marimba was composed in 2009 at the request of Mario Boivin, marimbiste and colleague of Ingari at l'Université de Sherbrooke. The three works are settings of sections of Psalms 100, 102 and 150 respectively. In the first, "Make A Joyful Noise", the virtuosic linear writing for marimba interspersed with the driving rhythms of the choral writing makes for an exciting musical celebration. The middle section slows as the choir sings the words "Come before his presence with singing" followed by a gradual return to the music of the first section. In "Hear My Prayer" the mantra-like repetition of a motive sung on "ah" becomes the accompanying backdrop to a series of vocal supplications expressed by widely spaced sonorities and colorful harmonies. The musical drama is enhanced by frequent interjections by the marimba. In "Praise Ye The Lord" the dance-like text declamation in the voices is accompanied by a forward moving rhythmic pattern of eighth-note scale passages in 7/8 played on the marimba. Here again the writing for the marimba is virtuosic, making for an exhilarating finale to the set of three pieces. Dona nobis pacem was originally composed and published in 1994 as a work for chorus with keyboard accompaniment. In 2000, it was rearranged for chorus and string orchestra and it is this version that appears on this recording. A unique characteristic of the work is that it remains entirely in the scale of G major without a single accidental. The melodic and harmonic interest is found instead in the subtle use of dissonance and the addition of seconds and ninths to the chord structures. Tension is also established and maintained by the gradual ascent in vocal range, volume and intensity, toward a climax where the choir cries out in a plea for peace, only to descend back to the original music of the opening music.- Shop: odax
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Bach to Brazil
A captivating musical experience, led by a duo with a distinctive sound and an eclectic repertoire, Brewer & Deroche are delighting Chicago-area audiences. The gifted hands of guitarist Jason Deroche and harpist Mark Brewer create magically transcendent sonorities, embracing a broad range of timbres, textures and emotions. You will find something truly memorable in Bach to Brazil's lively and thoughtful mix of solo and duo selections filled with surprise and charm. The duo breaks new ground with original improvisations on Bach and Bonfa and plucky transcriptions of keyboard classics by Scarlatti. Deroche and Brewer are fixtures on the Chicago music scene, long regarded for their high standards of musicianship, performances of great beauty and warmth, and virtuosic command of their instruments. Both are restless explorers of musical styles and instrumental combinations. And in Bach to Brazil each has discovered a kindred spirit and exciting new possibilities in the simpatico blend of harp and guitar.- Shop: odax
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Inquieto 20th Century Masterworks
Antoniy Kakamakov began studying the guitar at the age of ten with Milena Valtcheva, in his native country of Bulgaria. In 1997 he won first prize in the junior division of the International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition in Sinaia, Romania, and in the following year he won two first prizes in the junior divisions in the international guitar competitions in Kraiova, Romania and Assenovgrad, Bulgaria. In 1999, he was awarded full scholarship to study guitar at the Idyllwild Arts Academy, where his teachers were Terry Graves and Michael Kudirka. He received his Bachelor's degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) in 2007, under the tutelage of David Tanenbaum, and has continued his studies there as a Master's candidate. In 2007, he received second place in the SFCM Concerto Competition and was a prize-winner in the Portland Guitar Festival and Competition. In April 2008, he won first prize in the inaugural Wesley Day Solo Classical Guitar Recording Competition. In the fall of 2008 he will continue his studies at SFCM with Sergio Assad. He has played in master classes for William Kanengiser, Duo Assad, Nigel North, Manuel Barrueco, Paul Galbraith, Ana Vidovic, Antigoni Goni, Pavel Steidl, Gyan Riley, David Grimes and the Katona Twins. In the beginning of the twentieth century the music written for guitar was largely influenced by Andres Segovia. He commissioned guitarist and non-guitarist composers and then would edit the pieces to better suit the instrument, thus most of this repertoire is very similar in it's overall sound. However, twentieth-century compositions that were not supported by Segovia were, in general, superior in content and considered a liberation from the previous dependence on the works by Torroba, Ponce, Villa-lobos etc. Antonio Jose, Frank Martin, Benjamin Britten and Maurice Ohana's compositions have just recently received the recognition they deserve, partly due to the change of the climate towards deeper understanding and appreciation of intellectual music by audiences. These masterpieces demand a new technical approach and more interpretive imagination than those commissioned by Segovia. The performer immediately recognizes that the way the fingers fit under the fret board is unfamiliar to what they are used to, since the composers did not know the instrument. This program explores the international variety (Spain, Switzerland, England and France) as well as the differences in compositional form and style of the contemporary twentieth century works written for guitar. The existence of Antonio Jose's Sonata was not known until 1989 when Angelo Gilardino was informed of an unpublished manuscript by Jose that had been unplayed since 1933. Similar fate followed Frank Martin's "Quatre Pieces Breves," which were completely rejected by Segovia since the work did not fit his taste. Benjamin Britten's "Nocturnal" was problematic for the audiences at first due to it's intellectual complexity. However, it is now considered to be one of the greatest works produced for the instrument. Britten exploits many guitaristic effects - tremolo, pizzicato, open string pedals, etc. Although these techniques greatly expanded the guitarists' pallet of sound, they were not enough to execute the desired sonorities and textural complexity - as a result, new effects surfaced. All of these pieces put the performer's technique as well as his/hers interpretive imagination and abilities to a test. These masterworks also explore different compositional forms. The Antonio Jose Sonata is a four movement sonata form. Frank Martin's four brief pieces are modeled after baroque movements. Britten's "Nocturnal" is an unusual reverse variation form, where the whole basis of the piece - a John Dowland song "Come Heavy Sleep" - is not heard until the very end. Britten does this in order to resolve the intensity that has been built up throughout previous variations. Ohana's "Tiento" is his only piece for six string guitar. Knowing Yepes, Ohana went wild for the ten string guitar and wrote two large cycles for the instrument. "Si le jour parait"(1963) takes the title from Goya's Caprices "Si Amenece Vamos." The whole work's climax is in the middle movement Avril 20, which is a lament for an unnamed political prisoner, killed in the Spanish Civil War. It refers to ghostly figures under the night sky. Though these works were written within a short time span, they display a variety of styles. Jose was strongly influenced by impressionist composers such as Ravel and Debussy, which is clearly recognizable in his "Sonata para guitarra." The lack of Spanish nationalism in his music tragically had to do with his murder. Frank Martin was experimenting with 12 tone technique when he wrote "Quatre Pieces Breves," identifiable in the outer movements. The numbered sections in Britten's "Nocturnal" are non tonal, but follow the motivic content and structure of Dowland's song. Melancholy and the stages of sleep are the crux of the composition. It also explores the passive and the aggressive in every one of us in the climax - the Passacaglia, followed by the resolution - "Come Heavy Sleep." Ohana's "Tiento" as well as "Avril 20" are microtonal - he uses bending of the strings creating quarter-tone relations. De Falla had an impact on Ohana's works. This is recognizable in "Tiento," which takes and manipulates the habanera rhythm that Falla uses in his "Homehaje." This program connects to my career goals because I want to explore twentieth century and more recent music written for the guitar. These pieces are known by the guitar audience, but for the non-guitarist they may possibly be unfamiliar in sound and content. In my future recital programs I would like to dig into this repertoire and introduce it to the wider audience, thus going beyond their familiarity with the traditional sound of the works commissioned by Segovia.- Shop: odax
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