Carl Philip Emanuel Bach Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit, concertmasters Harmonia Mundi Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was the middle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s three surviving sons. His music occupies the period between the baroque and classical, often called the galant or rococo style. It truly is a transitional era, with the development of the orchestra, symphony, and a move toward more homophonic textures. Several recordings of his works have recently been issued, and it is nice to see this talented composer having a moment. Akademie für Alte
Read morePhilip Glass Solo Philip Glass, piano Orange Mountain Music This is the second piano album made by Philip Glass. Solo Piano (1989) contains some overlap of tracks with the latest recording, Philip Glass Solo (2024), but there are distinct differences between the renditions on each. At 87 years of age, and in demand from opera houses, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, and filmmakers for a steady spate of new works, a solo performance recording might seem like an unnecessary addition to Glass’s catalog. But it is in those aforementioned differences found in the music that he shares a different vantage point
Read moreOn Saturday, April 6, 2024 the Santa Monica Public Library and the Cold Blue Music recording label presented a concert titled An Afternoon of Double Basses and Piano. This was the latest incarnation of the Soundwaves series of new music concerts, now back in business after the Covid pandemic. The library auditorium was undergoing some renovation, so this concert was held in the nearby Edye Theater at the Broad Stage, part of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. There were three works presented: Darkness and Scattered Light, by John Luther Adams, featuring five double basses, Flying, by Christopher Roberts,
Read moreOn Saturday, March 30, 2024 Brightwork newmusic presented I Will Learn to Love a Person, a concert of new music at Boston Court Pasadena. Brightwork musicians Aron Kallay, Stacey Fraser, Brian Walsh and Nick Terry contributed excellent performances of works by noted composers.. The six works on the concert program dated from 2012 to 2024 and featured unusual combinations of vocals, piano, woodwinds and percussion. The first piece on the concert program was Wagon Wheeling (2012) by Tom Flaherty and written for Aron Kallay. This piece was inspired by those old western movies where the camera frame rates gave the
Read moreOn Sunday, March 24, 2024 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented the second in this season’s Wicked GOAT concert series of Contemporary Music for Young People. The concert is free to the Conservatory community and every seat in Barrett Hall was filled with eager faces and proud parents. The theme for this occasion was Stories and a stellar group of Los Angeles-based performers were on hand to bring four new music compositions to life, including a world premiere. Sopranos Hila Plitmann and Elissa Johnston brought their extraordinary voices to the stage, and this was the first Wicked GOAT concert to
Read moreSaturday, March 30th: Kafka Fragments at Tenri On Saturday at 8 PM, Kafka-Fragmente by György Kurtág will be performed at Tenri Cultural Institute (43A West 13th Street,New York NY), by soprano Susan Narucki and violinist Curtis Macomber (tickets). Earlier this week, they performed it at another venue also abundantly supportive of contemporary classical music, Buffalo University. Kafka-Fragmente is based on aphoristic texts by Franz Kafka from his diaries and correspondence. As is his practice, Kurtág brought the composition together gradually, collecting fragments over time and completing the piece in 1985. At seventy minutes in duration, until his opera Fin
Read morePolytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces, by Peter Thoegersen, is a new digital release from the Fragments of Blue recording label. Since obtaining his Doctorate in Composition from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Thoegersen has devoted much of his composing career to the exploration of the musical possibilities at the intersection of rhythmic structures in multiple meters combined with scales built from microtonal pitches. This latest album builds on earlier works by simultaneously combining different meters and tempi with various microtonal temperaments. These pieces originally date from 2003 to the present, but all have been updated to incorporate expanded combinations
Read moreKinds of ~Nois ~Nois, Kinds of Kings Bright Shiny Things The Bright Shiny Things recording Kinds of ~Nois is the result of a six-year long collaboration between the saxophone quartet ~Nois (Julian Velasco, soprano; Hunter Bockes, alto; Jordan Lulloff, tenor; János Csontos, baritone) and the composer collective Kinds of Kings (Shelley Washington, Maria Kaoutzani, and Gemma Peacocke). The recorded works are generally in a complexly post-minimal style, but each composer has their own distinctive voice. ~Nois’s rich ensemble tone and dexterous rhythms serve the music quite well. One can readily hear that a lot of preparation was put into
Read moreBreve Euclid Quartet Afinat The Breve Quartet has been in residence at Indiana University South Bend for sixteen years. During that time they have recorded a wide range of repertoire. Like so many ensembles, their catalog was put on ice during the pandemic, and their latest since 2017 for Afinat, Breve, returns with eleven miniatures in disparate styles. Listeners are encouraged to shuffle them to hear in any order. Miniatures are often thought of as the fare of encores, but a full program of them suggests that small doesn’t mean insubstantial or merely flashy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s C-minor
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York
How does a composer write music? Whether she pulls interesting sounds out of the air, or creates an elaborate scheme of hieroglyphics – can an uninformed listener tell the difference? Sometimes not, as was the case Wednesday night at the 92nd Street Y where the incomparable Takács Quartet gave the New York premiere of Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama. Flow was backed up by an elaborate set of program notes that described inspiration ranging from the sound of the Big Bang to the breathing discipline “Pranayama”. Even with that knowledge in hand, for the most part I couldn’t detect the
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