Louis Armstrong Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule Verve It is hard to believe that the late Armstrong never put out a Christmas album. He did, however, record a number of Christmas singles, including a duet with Ella Fitgerald and sides with the Commanders. Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule brings together his interpretations of holiday songs in beautifully remastered vinyl and CD versions. Cool Yule has quickly ascended to multiple top 10 positions, including Best Holiday Album, on the Billboard charts, the best his work has done in nearly fifty years. The title track is a mischievous
Read moreA House of Call. My Imaginary Notebook. Heiner Goebbels Ensemble Modern, Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor ECM Records Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call is an evening length collaboration with Ensemble Modern, an group with which he has collaborated on a number of projects over a thirty-five year period; this is their fourth CD for ECM. Subtitled “My Imaginary Notebook,” a reference to John Cage’s roaratorio via Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, the piece brings together several stylistically distinct sections, notably troping pieces associated with the ensemble. Sound recordings that Goebbels has collected over the years, many of folk music-making, are a
Read moreHans Werner Henze Nachtstücke und Arien (1957) Los Caprichos (1963) Englische Liebeslieder (1984-5) Juliane Banse, soprano; Narek Kakhnazaryan, cello; ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor NAXOS 8.574181 Hans Werner Henze is due a revival. His excellent operas and stylistically varied pieces for orchestra, voices, and chamber forces are some of the most distinguished music written by a German composer since the Second World War. Why then does he seem to take a backseat to others, from Stockhausen to Rihm, in terms of acknowledgement and performances? Henze’s music sits astride postwar modernism and the New Romanticism that have been
Read moreFile Under Favorites 2022 Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker Unseen Worlds Violinist/vocalist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist/vocalist Deborah Walker have collaborated on projects as improvisers and interpreted contemporary classical music, notably the work of Harold Budd. On their 2022 release for Unseen Worlds, Canti di guerra, di lavorro e d’amore (Songs of war, work, and love), they delve into folk music from the region Emilia, where they grew up. The specific focus of the release is the anti-Fascist songs performed by partisans during the Second World War. The inclusion of Coro delle Mondine
Read moreElizabeth Huston and Catherine Litaker were the featured performers for Play Nice – An Evening of Two Harps, a concert presented by Synchromy and held on a rainy December 1, 2022. Originally scheduled for 2020, this concert was postponed for two years due to the Covid pandemic. Six pieces, including two world premieres, were on the program performed at the CadFab Creative gallery in the Culver City Arts District. A wide variety of unusual harp music was heard including solos, duos, extended techniques and pieces with integrated electronic processing. The first half of the concert was titled Interstellar Space and
Read moreThe Blue Hour Shara Nova, voice A Far Cry Nonesuch Records Where once only one composer would create a work, creative collaborations are gaining a presence in contemporary classical music. The Blue Hour is the co-creation of five artists: vocalist/composer Shara Nova, and composers Angelica Negrón, Caroline Shaw, Rachel Grimes, and Sarah Kirkland Snider. They are joined by the chamber orchestra A Far Cry, who commissioned the work. The texts used throughout are excerpts from On Earth, by Carolyn Forché. The poem contains farflung, often abstract, images as its protagonist moves in the space between life and death, navigating memories
Read moreRichard Causton La Terra Impareggiabile Michael Farnsworth, baritone; Huw Watkins, piano BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, conductor NMC Recordings Richard Causton teaches at the University of Cambridge. His latest recording for NMC, a label with which he has long been associated, La Terra Impareggiabile, features a recent orchestra piece that has already garnered much acclaim, and a song cycle that took twenty-six years to finalize. The contrasts between these pieces demonstrate the breadth of Causton’s oeuvre, and the varied ways in which he approaches composing particular pieces. Ik seg: NU (“I say: NOW) (2019) has an interesting backstory
Read moreHugi Guðmundsson Windbells Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra Asbørn Ibsen Bruun, conductor Ashildur Haraldsdóttir, flute; Hildigunnur Einarsdóttir, mezzo-soprano Sono Luminus CD Icelandic composer Hugi Guðmundsson has crafted an idiom combining neo-tonality and modernist inflections, with deliberate rhythms often based on slowly evolving ostinatos. Aspects of rhythmic construction loom large on Windbells, a portrait CD for Sono Luminus, as well as Guðmundsson’s incorporation of electronics into chamber works. Entropy (2019) for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano is cast in two movements. The first, “Arrow of Time,” moves at a steady clip, its moto perpetuo adorned by various members of the ensemble darting
Read morePedro de Cristo Magnificat Cupertinos, Luís Toscano, director https://www.cupertinos.pt/en/presentation/ Hyperion Records During the “Golden Age” of Portuguese Polyphony, the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, composers on the Iberian Peninsula retained a more conservative idiom that has often been likened to Palestrina’s approach to counterpoint and declamation. Thus, the style of the Renaissance was retained longer than on the rest of the continent or in England. The mastery that resulted in this cultivation elevated composers such as Duarte Lobo (c.1565-1646), Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), and Miguel de Magalhães (1c. 571-1652) to considerable acclaim, affording them patronage from King John
Read moreThe dean of art songs left behind a treasure trove of great melodies.
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