The late-night Prom on August 9, presented by the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment, conducted by Chloe Rooke, was devoted to a single work, Songs of Wars I Have Seen by Heiner Goebbels. The work was written in 2007 for those same two groups, on commission from the Southbank Centre, for the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall after its two year-long renovation. Songs of Wars I Have Seen is based on Gertrude Stein’s book detailing her life in occupied France during World War II. The ins and outs of how Stein and her companion
Read moreBeaufort Scales is a new CD by Christopher Cerrone recently released by Cold Blue Music. Commissioned by the Lorelei Ensemble, this album explores the musical expression of the wind at sea in eleven beguiling vocal tracks. The composer writes that each of the pieces “…comment on the state of the weather at one point in time, serving as both a reprieve and a reflection upon the surrounding movements.” Developed in 1805 by British Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort and still in use today, the Beaufort Scale describes the velocity of wind using a value from 0 to 12 to indicate sea
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events, New York, News, Premieres
Tonight, the Locrian Chamber Players gives the New York premiere of Quintet 2 by Christian B. Carey. Sequenza 21 readers know Carey very well through his insightful reviews of concerts and recordings in this publication. He is also a superb composer with a lengthy catalogue of varied works. Quintet 2 is scored for oboe, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and Carey wrote it for the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, who commissioned it and premiered it in 2016. In his program note, Carey writes that much of his music – including this work – is based on the idea of labyrinthine
Read moreThe BBC Prom on August 7 was presented by the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by John Storgårds. It featured Stefan Dohr as soloist in the Horn Concerto by Hans Abrahamsen, written between 2018 and 2019. The work is mostly a monologue by the soloist which is provided with a luminous and quite beautiful backdrop, sometimes reactive and interactive, and sometimes just a background, but always aurally compelling. Although the movements are designated by tempo, they are really differentiated more by the density of the, as it were, accompaniment than by the actually speed of the music. At the end of the
Read moreQueen of Hearts Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, director Alasdair Austin, countertenor (final track only) Hyperion Records, 2024 On Queen of Hearts, the low male vocal ensemble Gesualdo Six explores pieces devoted to queens, both the Virgin Mary (in her guise as Queen of Heaven), and queens from England and Continental Europe during the renaissance era. Some of the selections blur identities, linking the saintly actions of earthly monarchs with those of Mary. The Song of Songs, from the Hebrew Bible, has an interesting place in both sacred and secular music of the Renaissance. In liturgical pieces, it is an
Read moreNeave Trio Rooted Chandos Records (2024) Neave Trio – violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura – has recently made several imaginative recordings for Chandos. Rooted is influenced by traditional music and by Antonín Dvořák, who brought the concept of using your country of origin’s folk music in concert works to the United States and, in the case of one of the programmed composers, influenced those in the UK as well. Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) was thought of as the premiere Czech composer of his day. Piano Trio, Op. 15 (1857), was written in the midst
Read moreEllen Taaffe Zwilich: Symphony No. 5 Sarah Brady, flute; Gabriela Diaz, violin Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, Music Director BMOP/Sound 1098 Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich turned eighty-five in April, and one of the many celebrations of her life and work is a recording by Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Directed by Gil Rose and featuring flutist Sarah Brady and violinist Gabriela Diaz as concerto soloists, it is a generous program of her music. The centerpiece is Zwilich’s Symphony No. 5 (2008), a powerful four-movement work that combines traditional formal structure with a musical language of a more recent vintage.
Read moreVideo: Guided by Voices: “I Am A Scientist,” 30th Anniversary Version Guided by Voices celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of their album Bee Thousand with a remake of one of their early, most-beloved songs, “I Am A Scientist,” via Rolling Stone. In an interview with RS, frontman and principal songwriter Robert Pollard describes “I Am A Scientist” and Bee Thousand as follows:“The song and the album opened the door for me and allowed me to play rock music for a living.” Prior to that, he was a science teacher. Guided by Voices Strut of Kings GBV Inc. (2024) The ever-prolific
Read moreDonald Berman Ives Avie, 2024 Pianist and scholar Donald Berman has made a special inquiry into the music of American hyper-modernist composers, Charles Ives chief among them. This year marks the sesquicentenary of Ives’s birth, and Berman celebrates the occasion with an Avie CD of the original piano version of St. Guadens (“The Black March”), best known as one of the movements of the orchestra piece Three Places in New England, and his own scholarly edition of the totemic Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord Mass., 1840-1860, usually known by its nickname, the “Concord Sonata.” One of the challenges
Read moreMessiaen Barbara Hannigan, soprano Bertrand Chamayou, piano Charles Sy, tenor; Vilde Frang, violin Alpha (ALPHA1033, 2024) Soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an extraordinarily talented and versatile performer. Bertrand Chamayou is a superlative player of the French repertoire. Putting the two together in a recital of vocal works by Olivier Messiaen is inspired programming. The CD’s gestation is detailed in Hannigan’s program note, which describes the two artists’ first meeting and subsequent decision to collaborate. The soprano’s longtime duo partner, Reinbert de Leeuw, was too ill to continue performing, and by the time that Messiaen was recorded, it was
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