The Naxos label diverges from its usual plain graphic design with this attempt to create the idea of an "alternative classical" genre, an idea that has paid big dividends when applied to rock and country music. Most of the selections are drawn from existing Naxos releases, with a few taken from discs by Denmark's Da Capo and Germany's CPO labels. ...
In the note on the back of this CD, the musical career of Charles Wuorinen is compared to those of Beethoven and Brahms, but the justification for this curious idea may not be apparent to most listeners, since the music of these composers is quite dissimilar. Even though Wuorinen's models are familiar forms -- divertimento, string quartet, piano ...
The Waltz Project Revisited, by Eric Moe, shows just how diverse contemporary music is. The term waltz proves to be as flexible and durable as a springboard in these miniatures. The composers represented here used the traditional waltz in 3/4 time as a starting point for these varied and distinctive works, running the gamut from sentimental to ...
This CD brings together three of Charles Wuorinen's best-known chamber works in stellar performances by the Group for Contemporary Music, of which the composer was a founder, and the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble. Tashi (1975) was written for the ensemble of the same name, which consisted of violinist Ida Kavafian, cellist Fred Sherry, ...
The second volume of Documents of the Munich Years presents four American modernist works performed between 2002 and 2003 by James Levine and the Munich Philharmonic and compiled here in simulation of a live concert, complete with applause. If this had been a true concert, the programming of these challenging pieces together might have raised a ...
One might not have supposed that a disc's worth of contemporary trombone quartets existed, but the combination is a popular one in the academic settings for which most of these works were originally composed. The medium of the trombone quartet both places restrictions on the composer's imagination and suggests a range of historical references and ...
Naxos' bargain-priced compilation of three of its previously released discs of music by Philip Glass is especially valuable because it consists entirely of works for orchestra, a genre in which he is not especially well represented on recordings. (Many of his film scores are written for orchestra, but his absolute music -- symphonies and concertos ...
Five of the discs on this six-CD set are previously released Naxos recordings of a broad variety of works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The set offers a generous sampling of works spanning the composer's career, from his polystylistic Collage über BACH (1964) for orchestra to his 2001 Nunc dimittis for a cappella chorus. The bulk of the ...
The Dante Trilogy consists of three modernist ballets by Charles Wuorinen: The Mission of Virgil (1993), The Great Procession (1995), and The River of Light (1996), which correspond to the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso of La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri. Without attempting to depict the poem's otherworldly narrative through scene ...
For Oliver Knussen's 50th birthday, the London Sinfonietta collected 13 musical tributes to the composer/conductor from among the many composers with whom he had worked. The results are these brief pieces, all between one and five minutes long, scored for solo instrument, small ensemble, or full orchestra by some of the world's most famous ...
This collection of mostly vocal works by Charles Wuorinen is notable in several respects and has gained appropriate publicity. It is a product of the growing contemporary music scene in Houston, TX, which has apparently begun to find ways to build on the substantial presence of modern art in that city for which rising oil prices are good news. And ...
Oliver Knussen conducts the London Sinfonietta in two works by Charles Wuorinen, one a classic written in 1975, and the second written 25 years later and recorded here for the first time. Both works are vintage Wuorinen -- knotty, astringent, and uncompromisingly rigorous -- this is not music for sissies. A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky, based on ...
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