Flea Records has released a new CD of vocal music by Peter Thoegersen titled Facebook: What’s On Your Mind? The album is a microtonal song cycle consisting of twelve short cantos sung by mezzo-soprano Lore Lixenberg, accompanied by synthesized piano. Peter Thoegersen is a pioneering composer known for the use of multiple tempi and alternate tuning simultaneously in his works. Ms. Lixenberg is an accomplished vocalist who has performed music by composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pauline Oliveros and Phil Niblock, among others. The texts for the song cycle are drawn from Facebook postings by the composer between 2016 and
Read moreGiya Kancheli Simple Music Jenny Lin, piano; Guy Klucevsek, accordion Steinway and Sons CD Giya Kancheli died in 2019, leaving behind an imposing catalog that included a number of late large works for orchestra and chorus. The Georgian composer also wrote in a more intimate style, often for films and theater. These pursuits kept his work out of view of the censors of the Soviet era, so eager to hunt down modernist composers. Thirty-three of these pieces, ephemeral but attractive, are collected in Simple Music. Pianist Jenny Lin and accordionist Guy Klucevsek realize these works on a Steinway CD.
Read moreLouis Andriessen The Only One Nora Fischer, soprano Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Nonesuch Records Louis Andriessen is in poor health. The eighty-one year old composer finished his last work, May, in 2019. It received a belated premiere (sans audience due to the pandemic) in December 2020 by Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam, conducted by Daniel Reuss (the linked broadcast of the piece starts forty-eight minutes in). The Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, has released another of Andriessen’s final works, The Only One (2018), on a Nonesuch recording. It is a set
Read moreThe Pasadena Conservatory of Music has recently produced The Vexations, a new YouTube video that is an overview of the life of Erik Satie as based on the novel by Caitlin Horrocks. Part of the Conservatory’s Musical Interludes series, this video features narration by actress Jane Kaczmarek in the role of Satie’s sister Louise, along with Nic Gerpe and Kathryn Eames performing on the piano. Filmed in the warm acoustic of Monk Space with a credible staging of Belle Époque Paris, The Vexations is an appealing and accessible way to a greater understanding of the life of Satie and his
Read moreMarco Stroppa Miniature Estrose – Primo Libro (1991-2003, revised 2009) Erik Bertsch, piano Kairos CD Pianist Erik Bertsch’s debut recording for Kairos is of composer Marco Stroppa’s most highly regarded piano works, the first book of Miniature Estrose. Bertsch was the first pianist to perform it in its entirety in Italy. The overall arch of the complete cycle of piano pieces, including a second book, has been sketched but not yet released. Even its partial completion is an impressive hour long demonstration of the capabilities of the piano in the twenty-first century. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7hy_QySsA The first selection on
Read moreTulpa Curtis K. Hughes New Focus Recordings “Tulpa is a term appropriated by 20th century theosophists from Tibetan Buddhism to refer to a manifestation of a physical being generated purely by thought, sometimes also likened to an imaginary friend, a doppelgänger, or a shadow version of the self.” Curtis K. Hughes Curtis K. Hughes is Professor of Composition at Boston Conservatory. Tulpa is his second portrait CD and the programmed works span from 1995 to 2017. There is a consistency from the earliest to most recent works, with the principle change being an ever more assured compositional
Read moreXI Records has recently released a new dual CD set by Dave Seidel titled Involution. The album consists of two extended works, Involution and Hexany Permutations, that together comprise well over two hours of electronic music. Strongly influenced by La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier, Involution is an extensive exploration of the sonorities that are possible outside of the conventional well-tempered Western scale. Each track features a series of sustained tones presented in layered and changing combinations so as to systematically reveal the implicit harmonies possible in the selected scale. In this album, Seidel incorporates the Wilson-Grady Meta Slendro scale,
Read moreFive Experimental Recordings Anna Heflin The Redundancy of the Angelic: An Interluding Play Shannon Reilly, Emily Holden, violins; Anna Heflin: viola, voice, composer, writer Infrequent Seams cassette and download “I’m sitting on a galaxy. Stars and moons blanket the deep red spa chairs. I rest on constellations. Space itself supports me. Luna lifts me.” Thus begins Anna Heflin’s debut recording, which encompasses a spoken word play, sound art, and string duets filled with secundal dissonances and sustained drones. Heflin acknowledges a debt to Mozart in the violin/viola duo textures of the music, as well as to Bartôk’s own dissonant writing,
Read moreJosquin: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie – Missa D’ung aultre amer – Missa Faysant regretz Tallis Scholars Gimell Records Josquin Motets and Mass Movements Brabant Ensemble Hyperion Records The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez Stile Antico Decca Classics While scholarly consensus on Josquin’s birthdate has moved around over time (current estimates are around 1450), his death was in 1521, five hundred years ago. To mark this anniversary, three of the best ensembles singing early music have released recordings devoted to the composer’s works. The Tallis Scholars began their Josquin masses recording project decades ago, and this program
Read moreThe March 2021 offering from Music for Your Inbox is Hodad, a new video byDaniel Corral performed by violinist Myra Hinrichs. This work audaciously combines the Southern California surf with a solo violin played on the beach to create a unique collaboration between artist and nature. The program notes state: “At the beach, a violinist watches the waves roll in and out. The ocean becomes a score. Spot a wave in the distance. The wave crests; the wave washes up on the shore; the wave retracts and disappears into the sea. Play according to the wave’s movements.” The result is
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