104 Results for : programmatic

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    Resurrection
    O Mortal Man - (Herbert Howells 1892-1983) O Mortal Man is a setting of the Sussex Mummers' Carol (first collected and notated by Lucy Broadwood in 1908). It is a slightly mysterious work that seems only to have come to light within the last twenty years. In the 1990s, Christopher Palmer produced the first edition from the almost-complete manuscript source in the library at the Royal College of Music. When this disc was being recorded, it became clear that further consultation of the source was necessary, and, as a result, Sam Hayes produced the edition that is heard here, with great gratitude to Palmer's earlier work. The present reading corrects a few small errors found in the earlier edition, provides a slightly different completion of the missing final bars and offers occasional alternative readings of the string voice-leading, sometimes unclear in the source. It also suggests text for the charming inner verse for four-part choir. The source gives no text for this verse, but seems to suggest the placement of certain syllables using slurs. The original carol has at least seven verses, but Howells's manuscript for O Mortal Man suggests that the harmonisation of the inner verse should only be used once. The middle verse recorded here seemed the most logical choice, and complements the other two verses admirably. The date of the work is unclear, but a superficial comparison with the Four Anthems of 1941 suggests it may date from a similar period. Like as the Hart Desireth the Waterbrooks - (Herbert Howells 1892-1983) Composed in Cheltenham in early 1941, this setting of psalm 42 is one of a collection of four anthems written at this time, the other three being O pray for the peace of Jerusalem, We have heard with our ears O God, and Let God arise. The choice of texts is perhaps telling, as Howells's temporary residence in Cheltenham came as a result of his London home being bombed out in late 1940. Like as the hart is an acknowledged choral classic, combining Howells's trademark expansive melodies with his distinctive harmonic language, tonal and approachable, but not without a few more daring chromatic moments. Particularly striking is the warm, singable opening theme for tenors and basses in unison, the hauntingly ethereal soprano writing particularly in the divided section towards the end, and the reverent repose of the final bars. Life Cycle - Adam Pounds (born 1954) The Life Cycle was first composed as a piece for dance in 1992. At this stage it was written as a short piece for a chamber ensemble of seven players. After a successful performance (with dancers) at the Chelmsford Cathedral Festival, the composer decided to extend the work and transcribe it for full orchestra. In it's first transformation, the piece included a part for synthesizer but this was later discarded. Although programmatic, the 'Life Cycle' is perhaps one of the most experimental and abstract of Pounds' work. The opening was re-written in 2010 and describes 'a beginning'. The music then passes through different stages - birth, the joy of life (depicted by a minimalist section), stress and finally death (the music being a mirror image of the opening) followed by the ascension of the spirit. There is much use of exciting rhythms with virtuosic demands made on all sections of the orchestra. The percussion in the piece includes randomly tuned drums adding to the primitive, distant aesthetic of the work. The Lord is my Shepherd - Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989) Lennox Berkeley began composing at a young age but initially the idea of making his living as a professional musician was not apparent. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford and it was here that he wrote his first published work. The composer Ravel, suggested that Berkeley should study composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. This he did and she had a profound effect on his development both personally and as a composer. The 'Lord is my Shepherd' is a relatively late work and represents Berkeley at his most lyrical. It was commissioned to mark the 900th anniversary of the foundation of Chichester Cathedral and was first performed in 1975, the year that Berkeley became president of the Performing Right Society. The piece features a fine and memorable treble solo as well as convincing word painting The Martyrdom of Latimer - Adam Pounds (born 1954) Composed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Ely Sinfonia, this work explores the final days of the cleric Hugh Latimer's life, his death at the stake and his martyrdom. In order to give a sense of period modal themes and liturgical ideas are combined with strong rhythmic statements. The opening music is based on that of the Tudor composer Robert White, who was Master of the Choristers at Ely Cathedral. After a strong bell-like statement from the full orchestra, a flowing liturgical figure is introduced. There then follows an adagio that features an oboe solo in which the isolation of the character can be felt. The music then rises in tension representing the execution of Latimer and the following bass and tuba interventions utter the final death throws. The harmony then changes in nature to a more ethereal character and heralds the four trumpet parts. In the original performance, two of the players are sited in the gallery in order to exploit the special acoustic of the cathedral. The composer was asked to explore the concept of resurrection in the piece and to this end he has designed a coda which employs material earlier heard in the work that represents Latimer's character. After a short chorale-like figure in the brass the opening music returns in a more extended and assertive form. This is intended to reinforce the concept that in death, Latimer became more powerful and therefore 'alive'. Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice - Gerald Finzi (1901 - 1956) Lo, the full, final sacrifice (Op. 26) was commissioned by the Revd Walter Hussey for the 53rd anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton. Finzi orchestrated the piece for it's performance at the Three Choirs Festival in 1947, and the reduced orchestration heard here is by Jonathan Rathbone, with support of the Finzi Trust. The text is assembled from two poems of Richard Crashaw (c. 1613-1649), an English poet of the Metaphysical tradition of John Donne and Thomas Traherne, 'Adoro Te' and 'Lauda Sion Salvatorem'. These constitute poetic translations of Latin hymns by St Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274). Finzi did not set the entirety of both poems, he instead excerpted and re-ordered selected stanzas from Crashaw's original to create a composite text for the work. The music of the piece is typical of Finzi's style - expansive, colourful, with suggestions of nostalgia and longing. The highly sectionalized form follows the stanza divisions of the text, featuring episodes of homophonic textures as well as short stretches of polyphony. The choral forces are used in a very varied way, ranging from unison and two-part writing to the luxurious 8-part Amen at the end of the piece.
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    Spirit Eternal
    This recording is dedicated to the Judaeo-Christian legacy of European musical expression and the struggle for life and freedom in the twentieth-century. Petr Eben (1929-2007) was born in Bohemia to a Jewish father in a family that adopted the Catholic faith. His was a life of determination, overcoming suffering, and of great humanity. He was at Buchenwald during the Second World War and after the war refused to join the Communist party, while openly practicing his faith. A true master and hero of twentieth-century art, Eben's talent was recognised already in his early childhood. He was renowned for his mastery of organ improvisation. Windows was composed in 1976. It was inspired by Mark Chagall's twelve stained glass windows at the Abbell Synagogue at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. Each window describes a son of Jacob, depicts his character, includes a biblical reference, and details the geographical area where each tribe resided in the land of the Hebrews. Chagall wrote the following dedication: 'This is my modest gift to the Jewish people who have always dreamt of biblical love, friendship and of peace among all peoples. This is my gift to that people which lived here thousands of years ago among the other Semitic people.' Marc Chagall, 6 February 1962 Eben selected four of Chagall's windows, thereby giving the work a four-movement structure. Each movement portrays the character and literal message presented in the window. George Enescu (1881-1955), like Eben, was a child prodigy. He was sent to Paris from Romania at an early age and became a violinist, pianist, conductor and composer. Enescu's stature remains high in Romania today, where he is revered as one of the great cultural figures of the twentieth - century. Composed in 1906, Legend is a short masterpiece for trumpet dedicated to Professor Merri Franquin at the Paris Conservatoire. I chose Legend for this recording as it presents a milestone in the trumpet repertoire. It's dreamy qualities also set it apart from the generally stern and deeply emotional repertoire elsewhere on this album. While utilizing the techniques perfected by the late nineteenth-century cornet masters Jean-Baptiste Arban, Jules Levy and many others, Legend places the trumpet in a context of 'serious' and programmatic music with sounds reminiscent of Massenet and Wagner. The Sonata for Trumpet and Organ opus 200 (1962) is made of three semi-improvised chants. Alan Hovahness (1911-2000) the American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent, brings out the style and deep emotion of slow-moving Armenian chant, played over tone clusters in the organ part. Following his popular trumpet and organ composition Prayer for St Gregory, Hovahness takes the listener further down the path of ambient soundscape filled with expression and lament. Like Windows and the Hindemith sonata, the duality and contrast between the keyboard and the trumpet create tremendous emotional power. The influence of German composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) on twentieth- century music is vast. An originator of a tonal system in his own compositions, conductor, violist and a committed pedagogue, Hindemith saw himself as a bearer of German musical tradition. He brought his art and knowledge to as diverse places as Turkey in the 1930's, and America in the 1940's and 50's. The Sonata for Trumpet and Piano (1939) is one of the most influencial compositions in the twentieth-century trumpet repertoire. It is part of a body of work, spread over decades, in which Hindemith wrote music for almost all orchestral solo instruments. In 1938 Hindemith left Germany for Switzerland. It was there, in 1939, a year before his move to the United States and while watching the disturbing political developments in his home land, that he composed the Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The musical language and structure of the composition are intense and unsettling, from the first note, to the last decaying B-flat of the final treatment of J S Bach's chorale Alle Menchen müssen Sterben (All people must die).
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    American Scenes
    Because American Scenes is built upon idioms drawn from a broad spectrum of American music, it celebrates a variety of 'schools,' styles and traditions. The thirty original piano instrumentals may be described as programmatic, since each one is meant to depict or suggest a story or 'scene', hence the title. Being dynamic in scope, the scenes evoke a wide range of emotions and moods. This CD, with it's unique structure is organized into three distinct volumes (or albums) - each with it's own set fo characterictics and attributes: Volume One (Scenes 1-9) - 'To Feel' - The emphasis is on melody. There is a tendency toward Romanticism and the effects are passive. Volume Two (Scenes 10-20) - 'To Think' - There is a greater focus on harmony. The music here has Classical traits and is more cerebral. Volume Three (Scenes 21-30) - 'To Move' - Popular formats are used. There is more energy and lift. The effects are much more active. While each volume (album) is complete in itself, the three unite into a dramatic and coherent whole. American Scenes (Vol. 1-3) represents the very best in contemporary piano music, and with it's rich aesthetic content is sure to please discerning listeners everywhere. Total CD playtime is 73 minutes and 47 seconds. All numbers were recorded and mastered at Uptime Studios, NYC.
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    Songs of Mountains and Wetlands
    Before the advent of mass communication technology - you know, stuff like television, radio, internet, wireless, youtube, bluetooth, metro, etcetcetc, music played a much more important role in the life of your average yeoman. Not to bring up statistics, or risk any sort of regression to Music History 101 or anything, but there was indeed a time when sheet music was a hot commodity and musical literacy was more than just an after-school special aimed at increasing your adolescent statistics at being accepted into a 'good' college as some sort of stab at a page torn from the Horatio Alger copybook. In short, music was not just a hot topic, it was THE hot topic - it was what you did. I mean, imagine coming home and gathering around the piano to play the latest programmatic score hot off your Schubert subscription and then packing up to head out for choir rehearsal for the local cantata - neat! And then... well, folks like Edison and Tesla had to come around and provide the grease for the slippery slope that lead us to our current manifestation of musical culture, dominated by iPhones and ring tones, where music is a commodity at best, shuffled around as bits and bytes like sampler spoons in a sea of infinite pseudo-memes - where spectacle and explosions aren't just a garnish, they're a norm, partially produced by Bruckheimer's and Bay's, with remixes by Diddy and that guy from the Postal Service. I could go on, but hey, we're all here now so one can only hope that you get my drift. However, what if we were able to take a step back for a second and reset the clock to about 1897 or so - with the proviso that we can take our technology with us? What if programmatic song cycles were still a cultural fixation reserved for the population at large, and not just regulated to individuals concerned with the 'preservation' of culture in music libraries nested in suburban New Jersey, hoping their next cultural discovery will secure them a speaking slot at the next musicology conference, taking place just outside some other suburban music library? And what if these programmatic art-songs were presented with the same respectable grandeur as a contemporary cinematic blockbuster, equip with all the explosions, glass shattering and gruff-voiced pituitary-cases rasping 'freedom isn't free,' while suspended by one hand from an Apache helicopter above a pit of molten lava... ...or something to that extent. If you're still with me after that particular rant, then Songs of Mountains and Wetlands might right up your alley. Imagine songs inspired by nature and transitory environs, composed on custom software and analog electronics tuned to seven-limit just intonation - hyper-compressed and oversaturated to the point where all aspects of delicacy have been smoothed away into a wash of fuzzed-out static - where the smallest sound is grandiose in a post-Bruckheimerian, digital neo-Wagnerian spectacle. Where even the mundane deserves it's own twenty-minute explosion-sequence... Still hooked? Place an order for this disc! Limited to the Thinktank standard of 25 hand-assembled CD's, and priced commensurate to the current economic slump, what do you have to lose? So uh, yeah, let's be in touch!
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    Laceworks
    64millimetres present guitarist Korina Vougiouka in a new CD: Laceworks. Vocal music by Schubert, Rossini and Bellini is re-shaped for solo guitar and interpreted by Korina Vougiouka in versions which provide the originals with a new dimension. The lieder and opera excerpts contained herein, stripped of lyrics, elements of dramaturgy and scoring techniques particular to their period, are not simple transcriptions by any means. They are, rather, transmutations which, taking advantage of the inherent nature of the guitar, illuminate harmonic, melodic and stylistic details of the original, weaving a delicate, aery composition - a "lacework". The first work in the CD is the well-known Rossiniana no.1, opus 119 by Mauro Giuliani, a renowned guitarist and composer, "The Paganini of the Guitar" as he was called in musical circles. Rossiniana no.1 is the first of 6 lengthy compositions of the "medley" type, collectively known as "Le Rossiniane" (op. 119-124) which Giuliani composed during his residence in Rome (1820-1823), based on musical themes from popular operas by Rossini. The three-part suite based on Vincenzo Bellini's "Norma", created by the composer Tasos Rosopoulos for Korina Vougiouka, is the second work in the CD and constitutes the most recent indication of Norma's continuing appeal. The suite uses some well-known musical themes of the opera, including the famous invocation of the "Chaste Goddess" of the Moon (Casta Diva). The CD is concluded by Tasos Rosopoulos' transcriptions of seven melodies from Franz Schubert's "Winter Journey" (Winterreise) lieder circle (nos. 1, 2, 8, 12, 20, 22 and 24). Here, Korina Vougiouka's interpretation manages to vindicate to a great degree the historical prejudice against the guitar as an instrument ill-fitting the deeper musical inspiration, while reminding the rising suitability of Schubert's programmatic music to the new age of noisy loneliness... The "Norma" and "Winterreise" suites are world-premiere recordings, made by Tasos Bakasietas in the "Dimitris Mitropoulos" vestibule of the Megaron Athens Concert Hall. The CD was mastered by Christos Hadzistamou and is accompanied by texts by Kyriakos Loukakos, rendered in English by Nico Graptós. Design and photography by Christos Lialios. Vougiouka Korina was born in 1976 in Kavala, Greece. In 1994 she graduated from the 'New Conservatory' of Thessaloniki taking her guitar diploma with mark excellent and first prize. In 2000 she graduated from the Cologne Music Academy (Hochschuele fuer Musik Koeln-class H.Käppel), taking the diploma 'Kuenstlerische Instrumental Ausbildung' with mark excellent, having scholarship from the Greek Scholarships Foundation. In 2002 she graduated from the Music Academy of Basel (class Oscar Ghiglia), taking her postgraduate diploma 'Konzert Reifediplom', having scholarship from the Onassis Scholarships Organization. She is now a PhD student at the University of Leiden (Holland). Her research is about the early 19th century vocal related guitar repertoire. She won four first prizes in national Greek guitar competitions. Additionally, she was honoured with the following international prizes: - First prize in the International Guitar Competition in Volos Guitar Festival. (1992) - The Prize of the 'Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe' in Germany. (1998) - Second prize in the 2nd Guitar Competition in Re (France). (1999) - First prize in the competition for flute, guitar and singing in Koblenz (Germany).(2000) - Second prize in the 28th International Guitar Competition in Gargnano (Italy). (2002) - Third prize in the 1st Dundee Guitar Competition (Scotland). (2004) She has performed solo as well as chamber music recitals in Greece, France, Austria, Great Britain, Turkey, Italy, Germany and California. She has also performed as a soloist with orchestras from Greece (including the National Orchestras of Athens and Thessalonica as well as the Kamerata Orchestra of Megaron), Spain (National Orchestra of Malaga, conductor Phil. Entremont), Germany and Hungary. She is a guitar professor at the Ionian Music University as well as artistic director of the Municipal Music Conservatory of Kavala and the 'Papaioannou' music festival.
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    Heroes Music for Brass By Kerry Turner
    International Horn Society Review: 'The extraordinary talent of Kerry Turner is on display here - this time as a composer of works for brass and percussion. Kerry Turner conducts some of the works and makes a 62-second solo appearance as a vocalist - a very nicely performed introduction to Ghost Riders. Although Kerry remains best known for his stellar performances and recordings with the American Horn Quartet, as his list of compositions grows, the performances and recordings of these works will soon place his name with the finest contemporary composers.' 'I enjoyed every bit of this CD: the compositions, the performances, and the recorded sound are all exceptional.' CS "The Horn Call" (International Horn Society) February 2007, pg 92. KERRY DREW TURNER (1960) was born into a very musical family on the famous King Ranch in southern Texas. He began composing at the age of ten and winning prizes two years later. Since 1984 Mr. Turner has held principal horn positions of the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne, Germany and the Symphony Orchestra of Radio-Tele-Luxembourg. In 1987 he was Bronze Medallist at the 39th Prague Spring International Music Competition on horn and has gained worldwide renown as a member of the American Horn Quartet. The music of Kerry Drew Turner is often pictorial if not programmatic. It can tell a story, relive a dream or depict an historical moment. Like other composers before him, Mr Turner draws from the musical heritage of his native land, in this case the folk music of Texas with it's strong Irish/Scottish roots. These influences are clearly audible in his music that is rich in color, energy and imagination as well as universal in it's appeal. HEROES (1997) is a three movement tone-poem for large brass ensemble and pays homage to three inspiring people in history who have displayed undaunted courage. I. Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) was 'one of the most indomitable and, in some ways, the most luckless of the Antarctic explorers of the early twentieth century.' In 1914, as captain of The Endurance, he and his crew were forced to abandon ship when it became trapped and pulverized in the Antarctic pack-ice. Unable to communicate with the rest of the world, Sir Earnest lead his men to a bleak, barren beach on Elephant Island. From there he and six of his men sailed a small lifeboat almost 1000 miles across stormy, frozen seas to South Georgia Island where he and two others scaled the 4,023 meter Mount Erebus in order to reach a tiny whaling station on the other side. He returned to Elephant Island aboard a self-chartered steamer to find all of his crew alive and well. In the face of total catastrophe, Sir Ernest Shackleton risked all dangers to bring his entire crew back safely to England. II. Stoning of Saint Stephen (died AD 36?) was the first Christian martyr. He was taken before the Sanhedrin on a charge of blasphemy. Standing fearlessly before a powerful group of men who hated him, he gave what is considered one of the most eloquent speeches of all time, calmly defending his faith while being mocked and derided by the court and crowd. Not allowed to conclude his own defence, he was condemned to death by stoning. Members of the assembly saw something marvellous in his face before he died, as he proclaimed to see the very heavens open above him. It has been said that this man came closer to being an angel than any man who has ever lived. III. Amelia Earhart (1898-1937) was a famous American female aviator. She was noted for her flights across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In June 1937 she began a flight around the world with her navigator Fred Noonan. As they neared the tiny Howland Island in the Pacific, their fuel ran very low and they lost all communication due to stormy weather. An extensive search by planes and ships of the United States Navy failed to discover any trace of the lost flyers, and their fate remains a mystery. Those who knew her spoke of a courage beyond measure. In the middle of this movement, the listener will hear an impression of Amelia Earhart's final radio communication, represented by the celesta above the background sounds of an airplane engine. THE CASBAH OF TETOUAN was conceived during a visit to Morocco in the summer of 1988. The composer offers the following anecdote: 'As we crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and first laid eyes on the North African coast, I knew we were in store for an adventure! The city of Tetouan was our destination, we were soon standing before it's main gates. As we entered the city, the many exotic new sights, complementing the wild sounds and smells of the bustling ancient city, overran our ices and grains, and silk. Street butchers displayed slaughtered lambs, goats and pigs, and a snake charmer with his cobra unnerved the unwary passerby. Somewhere around the urine-treated leather goods things began to swim before my eyes. After I informed the guide that I was ill, a young boy was sent to escort me to a quiet place. The boy knew every secret passage and shortcut in the Casbah. He led me through ever tinier streets and tunnels, across nomad camps, and even through a kitchen! We sailed through the back door of a mosque, and out the other side. Finally we entered a large, dark and cool house, which seemed to be some sort of palace. The boy led me to a back room and laid me down upon a bed of large pillows. I passed out. I awoke thoroughly disoriented. The first things I saw were six elaborately cloaked elderly men, wildly discussing in Arabic what could possibly be wrong with me, I heard exotic music and aromatic food assailed my senses. After closer observation I discovered I was in a fancy restaurant, being entertained by a belly dancer. Somehow my wife and brother found me and we resumed our inspection of Tetouan. I still felt lightheaded and rather doped by the 'therapeutic' tea, my impressions of the city were somewhat hallucinogenic.' FAREWELL TO RED CASTLE (1985) is based on a traditional Scottish pipe march presumably inspired by the Red Castle of Beauly Firth, possibly the oldest inhabited castle in Scotland. Originally written for string orchestra this piece has also been recorded in a version for 8 horns bythe American Horn Quartet with the NY Philharmonic horn section and receives it's world premier on this recording in a version for Brass Octet. The form is traditionally a theme with 4 variations and a finale. GHOST RIDERS (1994) (Brass Octet & Optional Voice) was inspired by a traditional Western American folk song. It tells of a cowboy who, while riding the range, has a terrifying encounter with a ghostly herd of cattle. In the vision a ghost rider warns him to better his sinful ways or end up riding with the devil herd for the rest of eternity. The opening text is as follows: 'A cowpoke went a-ridin' out one dark and windy day, He rested on his saddle as he rode along the way, When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed cows he saw, Thundrin' through the windy sky and on a cloudy drive. Yippie i ay Yippie i oh, Ghost riders in the sky.' THE LABYRINTH (1995/6) is for large brass ensemble and percussion. The inspiration of the piece came from a dream where one stands before the gate of a giant labyrinth. It contains countless corridors through which to pass in order to successfully exit the maze. Each corridor has it's own character, colors and sounds, each very different from the others. The traveler, the gate, each corridor and even the labyrinth itself has a theme or motive of it's own. Shortly after entering the mysterious maze, one is raced through a sequence of corridors, some dead-ends and some leading on to still others until, after a small surprise, he bursts through a window to escape into open 'free' sound. IMPROVISATION (1998) is named after the circumstances in which the piece was written. Starting with several different motives, the piece was composed while traveling, started with 5 days to kill in Chicago and finished on a flight to Melbou
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    Songs Without Words
    Songs Without Words is a compilation of classical, contemporary classical, and Latin pieces, many of which he has played live at various events in the United States and Germany. The album is titled after Mendelssohn's famous piano compositions, two of which are here arranged for guitar. '[Words] seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.' - Felix Mendelssohn Torsten selected music from around the world - from the Near East, Africa, Australia, Europe and the Americas - because of the enjoyment he gets from playing these pieces, and for the stories they tell. Called 'programmatic music', these compositions tell a tale - such as Koyunbaba's description of a shepherd's experience of the landscape of a region in Turkey, or The Magic Box, which relates how a small town in Cameroon was introduced to the gramophone. 'The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.' - Felix Mendelssohn Programmatic music, pieces that tell a story, always appealed to Torsten. When he performs, he likes to take a moment before each number to share with the audience something about the composer, the arranger, or about the meaning or the mood of the pieces. Influences & Favourites Torsten has been playing David Qualey's arrangement of the Bach piece, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, since 1987. Many of Qualey's distinctive compositions are favourites of Torsten's, often incorporating ragtime and swing beats among the classical pieces. The unique interpretation and expression of Das Frankfurter Gitarrenduo of guitar and lute so impressed Torsten that he included several of their pieces in his repertoire. Torsten's overall favourite classical composer is J. S. Bach. Spaniard Narciso Yepes was one of the few guitarists Torsten is aware of who played Bach with a 10-string guitar, the bigger range of the instrument making it sound closer to the original version. Torsten's Background Growing up in Germany, Torsten picked up the acoustic guitar at 13 years old - all his friends were learning electric guitar, but he couldn't afford one. As he began teaching himself from books and an extensive collection of sheet music from the Münster City Library, he found that classical music suited him. He liked folk music too, but he couldn't sing and play at the same time (well, in fact, he says, he can't sing at all). When he encountered a small Andante by Ferdinando Carulli, he was hooked. The piece captured him and it was the first that he memorized. He was fascinated by the polyphonic nature of the guitar, the ability to play two or more voices simultaneously. After moving to San Diego, California, Torsten joined the MiraCosta College Guitar Ensemble in 1996, where he was fortunate to meet a number of talented amateur classical guitarists who would become long-time friends - Gary Peek (a professional bassist who plays several duets with Torsten on Songs without Words), Don Wilson, John McLaren - and where he worked with guitarist Peter Pupping. Torsten's playing benefited from the influence of several professional guitarists in the San Diego area with whom he also became friends, namely Scott Wolf, Randy Pile, Eric Foster, Colin McAllister, and Jimmy Patton. The guitar which Torsten uses for most of the tracks on Songs without Words was built by Pepe Romero, Jr., a luthier of the famous Romero clan here in San Diego. 'There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.' - Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965.
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    Classic Strings Duo
    "The artistry and talent of these brothers touches my soul and generates wonderful response from those who share their audience...They are truly gifted and disciplined to give outstanding performances time and again." --Richard McClure, Conductor, Valley Chamber Orchestra 1. - 2. Grand Duo No. 1 in C Major, Op. 69 by Ignace Pleyel (1757-1831) 3. - 5. Three Rags for Violin and Viola (1996) * by William Ryden (1939- ) 6. Duo for Violin and Viola (2009) * by Martha Craig (1978- ) 7. - 9. Duo No. 2 in F Major, WoO 27/2 by L. van Beethoven (1770-1827) 10. Duo in C Major (1891-92) by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) 11. - 15. Little Suite for Autumn (1979) by Peter Schickele (1935- ) 16. Oblivion (1982) with Kevin Zakresky, piano by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) * World Premier Recording Of the approximately 50 duos that Ignace Pleyel (1757-1831) wrote, Grand Duo No. 1 in C Major, Op. 69 expresses his typical good humor and inventiveness. Pleyel, a very successful composer, was considered one of the most popular and prolific in his time, with his works even performed in America. The 24th son of 38 children of an impoverished Austrian schoolmaster, Pleyel studied with Joseph Haydn and became the organist at the Strasbourg Cathedral. In 1791, when the French Revolution closed his post as organist, Pleyel moved to London where he directed rival concerts to those led by Haydn. In 1795 Pleyel moved to Paris where he founded a highly successful music-publishing house and the Pleyel Piano Company. Three Rags for Violin and Viola was written in 1996 by New York City native William Ryden (b.1939). A well known composer, arranger, conductor and pianist, Ryden has written concertos, chamber music, musicals and over 250 rags for solo piano. This duo, recorded here for the first time, captures the quintessential feeling of ragtime in rhythm and melody. Duo for Violin and Viola was commissioned by the Classic Strings Duo and premiered in May 2009. Written by Martha Craig (b.1978) of Virginia, this duo incorporates several different styles of music including tango and jazz. It is an entertaining piece with the two instruments dancing their way through the melodies and pizzicato passages. Duo No. 2 in F Major comes from Three Duos WoO 27 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and was written in 1792 for the principal clarinet and bassoon players in the orchestra at the court in Bonn, Germany. As with most of his salon music, Beethoven did not assign an opus number to these stunning duos, which have been transcribed for violin and viola. Until recently, the early, unpublished works of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) were entirely unknown. In 1982 the Sibelius family donated all his manuscripts to the University of Helsinki library. This allowed scholars to catalog and publish numerous works that Sibelius had written in his youth. The warm and lyrical Duo in C Major dates from 1891-1892 and reflects Sibelius' love of nature and his native Finland, with hints of the violin concerto to come. American composer Peter Schickele (b.1935) often stayed with his friends, Gil and Mary Stott, while visiting his alma mater, Swarthmore College. In October 1979, Schickele wrote Little Suite for Autumn as a thank you note for them since they played violin and viola. This duo has five short movements and is very programmatic, incorporating sounds of autumn such as rustling tree branches and leaves swirling in the wind. Born in Argentina to Italian parents, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) moved to New York City with his family while still a child. There he was exposed to both jazz and classical music. At age eight his father gave him a bandoneon, a type of concertina popular in Argentina, and Piazzolla became quite a virtuoso on it. In his compositions, he merged the structure of sophisticated music with the passion of the tango. Oblivion, one of his most popular tangos, became widely known through the soundtrack of Mario Bellocchio's film, Enrico IV (1984). This piece was arranged for piano trio by José Bragato, the cellist in several of Piazzolla's ensembles. Kevin and Bryan Matheson - The Classic Strings Duo &nbsp, "The brothers created an agreeably old-timey sound and presented very stylishly, with real flourish and attention to detail." -- Jeffrey James, Editor and International Composer, New York City &nbsp, Kevin and Bryan were received with critical acclaim at their Carnegie Weill Recital Hall début as part of the Ibla Grand Prize competition winners' tour. The duo has been recognized for it's mesmerizing and spirited performances - two perfect virtuosos, playing as one. Kevin and Bryan are passionate about performing and promoting works featuring the violin-viola duo and enjoy working with composers to broaden the repertoire. &nbsp, As founding members of the Rainier Trio and Saturn String Ensemble, they have been heard in frequent concerts, on the trio's first CD, the premier recording of Matthew Barbre's String Quartet No. 1 and with opera singers at the Vocal Arts and Music Festival. Kevin and Bryan have performed as guest soloists with the Irish Sinfonietta Orchestra in New York City, and for nine seasons have been concertmaster and principal violist of the Viva Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra, which has recorded for Centaur Records. They have performed in the Ameropa International Chamber Music Festival in Prague and were concertmaster and principal violist of the festival orchestra. For eight seasons Kevin and Bryan served as concertmaster and principal violist in the RMA Chamber Orchestra. As frequent soloists with the orchestra, they performed numerous concerts in the southeastern United States and in Ireland, including performing in the prestigious West Cork Chamber Music Festival and on radio, twice for former Virginia Governor Mark Warner and on the orchestra's first CD. The orchestra gave the world premier performance of Richard Ratner's Andante for Strings at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage in a joint performance with musicians from Hong Kong and Macao. &nbsp, The Classic Strings Duo and Rainier Trio receive funding from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and are listed in the Performing Arts Tour Directory. Publishers: LudwigMasters Music Publications (Ryden) Fennica Gehrman (Sibelius) Elkan-Vogel, Inc. (Schickele) A. Pagani S. r. l. Edizioni Musicali SIAE - Milano, Italy (Piazzolla)
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    Chamber Music 2009
    Lyrical Passages for Small Ensemble, by Brian R Russell Music for Chamber Orchestra, by Eric Goetz (in search of) Common Ground, by Zachary Smith Midnight Menagerie, by Josh Dobson Overcast, by Marcelo Freitas Chamber Music No. 1, by Brian Scott Phraner Nymphaes, by Jeff Tolbert Toboggan, by Greg Schlimm String Quartet No. 2, Colloquy: I-III, by Jennifer Taylor The Flying Man of Pocklington, by Deborah Lee Cloud Waltz, by Steve Heuring The Siren and the Rocky Shoal, by Tim Huling Eleven students came together under the tutelage of Tim Huling and wrote new music for Clarinet, Harp, Percussion, and string quartet. The result was these pieces - beautiful new works ranging from impressionistic, to lyrical, to modern, to programmatic. This album is a recording the pieces' world premieres in the lovely Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle, Washington, in front of a packed house. Laura Deluca - Clarinets, Bethany Mann - Harp, Rob Tucker - Percussion, Gennady Filimonov - Violin 1, Artur Grisky - Violin 2, Arie Shachter - Viola, Walter Gray - Cello.
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    Chopin
    During my time as a student with Byron Janis in New York, we studied many of Chopin's works together, encompassing all genres, both large and small. Byron Janis was a genius of expression and characterisation in all the music of Chopin. He gave the small works the respect that tends to be reserved only for the large works by many and he influenced me greatly in my interpretation. In gratitude for music and much else, I dedicate this recording to Byron Janis. Small forms... I was delighted to be asked to record a Chopin Recital devoted to his smaller works. The emerging musical Romantics undoubtedly owed some of their ideals to their literary aunts and uncles. One legacy of this was the status of the fragment as a work of art, stemming from Novalis and Jean Paul and finding musical form through Schumann and some of the Preludes by Chopin. However, the musical revolution was not unopposed. Even in our postmodernist age, there is an uneasiness, among members of the artistic profession especially, about the eminence of these Waltzes, Nocturnes, Mazurkas and other small works. How typically ironic was Chopin's pen when in a letter from Vienna he wrote, 'Here, waltzes are called works!' An article from 1835 in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik by August Kahlert, typical of the day, represents a three-pronged attack on small forms in general, calling dance music the lowest form, implying that dramatic music is incompatible with small genres and explaining the custom of adding literary titles to musical works as being a mask to cover up empty works that have no meaning of their own. Even Schumann himself, who later attempted opera and symphony, said that Chopin's exclusive concentration on piano composition prevented him from achieving even greater heights. It is the aesthetic of the fragment - so many half-glimpsed and half-wrought visions, 'individual eagle pinions' as Schumann styled Chopin's Preludes - that is valuable to an appreciation of all Chopin's small forms. Although not strictly fragments, the Waltzes, Mazurkas and Nocturnes all share a dispersive quality with the true fragments among the Preludes. Each short work is a microcosm of expression, voice, form and technique. The epic, dramatic and lyric voices of a Chopin ballade or sonata can all find their individual articulation in the passage of a single Mazurka or Nocturne, just as the Waltz is a component of most of the large-scale works. The song... The nocturnes have a superficial affinity with the growing tradition of small-scale works popular with publishers and amateurs from the start of the nineteenth century. This association is responsible for the notion of Chopin the salon composer. However, Chopin's first published nocturne, Opus 9, No. 1, stands manifesto-like at the gateway forbidding such an interpretation with it's remote and dark opening tones. The full drama is unleashed in the middle section of the last nocturne of that same set of three. Publishers of the day followed the custom of attaching poetic titles to works to promote sales. The London edition of the Opus 9 Nocturnes went under the title Murmurs of the Seine and few works by Chopin escaped such treatment. Inevitably these titles, combined with the narrative hallmarks and intensity of many of his lyrical compositions, brought about another powerful conception of Chopin as a Romantic composer. His music became a 'fragment of autobiography', in Dahlhaus' words, and Chopin's liaison with Georges Sand, the trip to Majorca, his suffering and consumptive end took on new significance for the reception of his music. Chopin himself was too classicist to support this. He did not approve of descriptive titles and in his extant correspondence hardly more than once gives a poetic description of one of his own works. The dance... The Waltzes and Mazurkas mostly abandon the solid practicality of danceable music and instead elevate the spirit of dance, aspiring to the Baroque tradition of Bach. Chopin's Mazurkas tend to draw from more than one type of Polish regional dance, including the oberek and the kujawiak in addition to the characteristic holubiecs and other accents of the mazur. This elaborate mixing of genre, often perceptibly within one work, is an indication of the richness of the musical thought. Chopin's Mazurkas are also misinterpretations - in Harold Bloom's sense - of their folk models. One example is the treatment of the drones of Polish folk dance, such as the dudy or gajdy (bagpipes) or basetla or basy (unstopped string bass), which form a stable basis in the folk models. In Chopin, they sometimes function perversely to destabilise the tonic key, such as in the middle section of Opus 7, No.l. The Mazurkas partly fuel the myth of Chopin as the exiled Polish nationalist composer. As a result of the Polish folk origin and unusual modal elements of these dances, groups of listeners perceive his entire oeuvre, by association, as politically and culturally programmatic. Rubato... Eigeldinger identifies three distinct forms of rubato in Chopin - and the evidence suggests that Chopin used them all when he himself played his works. The most characteristic kind of rubato is that derived from the Italian Baroque bel canto tradition, and continued by Mozart, where the left hand maintains the pulse and the cantilena has an independent rhythmic freedom. The second kind is the more generally practised agogic fluctuation of tempo in response to phrasing, texture and dynamics. The third kind is a rhythmic signature specific to the Mazurkas, whose tradition must now sadly be regarded as lost to us. Chopin abandoned the use of the term rubato in his compositions at an early stage, no doubt because of the scope for misunderstanding and the recognition that the nature of rubato could only be communicated by demonstration. CD notes © 2001 Tamami Honma About TAMAMI HONMA, piano Tamami Honma began her career at the age of five as a prize-winner in a national competition in Tokyo, going on to make her US concerto debut at the age of seven with Mozart's Concerto in A Major, K414. After this auspicious start, she won grand and first prizes in several international competitions and has made many solo and orchestral appearances across most of the continental USA, in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Japan, Israel, Lithuania and Russia. In Moscow's Great Hall, she performed Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 7 with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. Tamami Honma studied piano over a four-year period with legendary pianist of the Romantic generation Byron Janis - himself a student of Horowitz and the Lhevinnes - in New York and thereafter with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, London. She now lectures on and co-ordinates the Piano Literature Course at the Royal Academy of Music, a course which she founded in 1998. An article by Tamami Honma on Beethoven performance was recently published in Arietta, Volume II (Autumn 2000 edition) and she was appointed as editor of the Liszt Society Journal in 2001. Commercial CD recordings of Tamami Honma's playing demonstrate an eclectic approach and a refreshingly diverse focus, including a disc of Mozart sonatas with violinist Howard Davis (leader of the Alberni Quartet), also for DK Music Ltd, and discs of contemporary British chamber works by McCabe, Rawsthorne and Nigel Clarke on Metier. Both Metier recordings received five stars in BBC Music Magazine and the Clarke CD also received high acclaim in Gramophone magazine. Tamami Honma's concert appearances around the world have included radio and television broadcasts with distinguished chamber partners. She has recently been featured on Lithuanian radio and television with the Vilnius String Quartet as part of the Gaida 2000 Festival in Vilnius, and on Polish Radio during the Autumn Festival 1999 in Warsaw with the acclaimed Kreutzer Quartet. Tamami Honma has also played with violinist Peter Sheppard-Skaerved, leader of the Kreutzer Quartet, cellist
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