Archive for liner notes – Page 2
Stephen Paulus: “The Incomprehensible”
The Incomprehensible Scored for chorus with oboe and harp accompaniment, The Incomprehensible (2009) provides this album’s title “Far in the Heavens” in its opening line, as it continues the allegory of departed souls now soaring as angels in heaven, about to know the “infinite Unknown.” The tempo is bright, the mood playful and free, the texture easy and light throughout, until that awe-filled moment when God’s nearness is anticipated. Those familiar with the HBO series…
Stephen Paulus on “Prayers and Remembrances”
Prayers and Remembrances Prayers and Remembrances (2011) was commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy by True Concord Voices & Orchestra, Eric Holtan, Music Director, and Mrs. Dorothy Vanek, in loving memory of her husband, Robert Vanek, and in memory of friends of the Vaneks from United and American Airlines who were lost on September 11, 2001. The idea for Prayers and Remembrances began with Eric Holtan. He approached me a few years…
Roberto Moronn Pérez On the Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers
A note from Roberto Moronn Pérez on his new Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers recording: The works included in this recording are part of the corpus of the Segovia Archive that contains the manuscripts Segovia received during his career from those composers who had the sensibility to write for him, but which, for a variety of reasons, he did not add to his repertoire. I am not going to speculate why he did not play…
Andrés Segovia Archive: Raymond Petit
Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers Raymond Petit One year before De Breville’s Fantaisie, another untitled work was written in 1925 by Raymond Petit (1893-1976). Composer, writer and music journalist, he was very active in Paris during the 1920s and 30s. In fact, he praised Segovia in numerous concert reviews. In 1926, Segovia gave a concert that featured the premier of a Petit piece under the title Andantino. A reviewer of that concert described it as…
Andrés Segovia Archive: Pierre de Breville
Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers Pierre de Breville César Franck’s student Pierre de Breville (1861-1949), wrote an untitled piece for Segovia in 1926. Angelo Gilardino (General Editor of the Andrés Segovia Archive) with great perception, basing his criterion on the form of the work which is neither a sonata nor a suite, neither variations nor a rondo, and because of its changeable character has given it the title Fantaisie. Composed in 3 sections, modally oriented,…
Andrés Segovia Archive: Henri Martelli
Andrés Segovia Archive: French Composers Henri Martelli As a consequence of the tremendous impact that Andrés Segovia had on the French musical world, most of the compositions recorded on this CD were written especially for him. One of the best examples is Quatre Piéces pour guitare, op.32, by the well-known French composer Henri Martelli (1895-1980) who, around 1932, composed this superb piece, a real guitar masterwork. its contrapuntal richness with the use of two and…
Richard Strauss Tone Poems
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Director, Manfred Honeck, on the Strauss Tone Poem Recordings: There are few composers who have such an impressive ability to depict a story together with single existential moments in instrumental music as Richard Strauss in his Tondichtungen (“tone poems”). Despite the clear structure that the music follows, a closer interpretative look reveals many unanswered questions. For me, it was the in-depth discovery and exploration of these details that appealed to me, as the…
Portraits of Colorado Composer Charles Denler
Charles Denler The music of American composer and pianist, Charles Denler, can be heard all over the world. With nearly 2000 concerts and 200 film and television scores to his credit, Charles Denler’s multiple Emmy Award-winning music can be heard all over the world. His ability to work in a wide variety of genres, and his collaborative work sense, has made him a top choice among producers and directors. Charles’ classical training and strong proficiency…
Bizet’s Symphony in C Major
Continuing our “inside” look at the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra’s Bizet recording, we turn to Victor and Marina Ledin’s liner notes on the Symphony in C Major. Bizet’s Symphony in C Major In 1855, at 17, while at the Paris Conservatoire, Bizet composed Symphony in C Major as a school exercise. The work shows traces of Schubert and Rossini, revealing the individuality of a man with a rare gift for melody and an instinctive grasp…
Charles Denler Talks Portraits of Colorado
PORTRAITS OF COLORADO, An American Symphony No. 1 is written in ten shorter movements to meet the needs of today’s contemporary audience. Our generation of music lovers are accustomed to playlists filled with shorter pieces of music, generally three to four minutes long. Lengthy symphonic movements often do not fit into modern playlists. Even though the symphony is divided into shorter movements, it is written in a traditional manner with theme and variation woven throughout…
An Inside Look at Bizet
An “inside” look at our San Francisco Ballet Orchestra Bizet recording courtesy of the liner notes by Victor and Marina Ledin. Bizet Bizet lived 36 years, dying three months after the production of Carmen. Biographers recount that having walked the streets of Paris after the first night his opera premiered, Bizet mourned the failure of his Carmen, so disillusioned, he retired to his home to die of a broken heart. Not quite true. Carmen received…
Federico Mompou — Andrés Segovia Archive
From the liner notes of the new FRESH! From Reference Recordings release Andrés Segovia Archive: Spanish Composers featuring guitarist Roberto Moronn Pérez: Federico Mompou Apart from gracing the Segovian guitar repertoire with the splendid Suite Compostelana, Federico Mompou dedicated a piece from one of his two-part works (n. 13) to the guitar and also arranged the guitar version (without a date) of the Canción y Danza n. 10, originally composed for piano. The underlying melody…
Padre Donostia — Andrés Segovia Archive
From the liner notes of the new FRESH! From Reference Recordings release Andrés Segovia Archive: Spanish Composers featuring guitarist Roberto Moronn Pérez: Padre Donostia A much more robust piece is the composition of José Antonio de San Sebastián, the secular name of the Cappuchine monk known across the musical world as Padre Donostia. His piece which is entitled (in the Basque dialect), Errimina (Nostalgia), attempts to evoke the delirium of an exile who, alone in…
Vicente Arregui — Andrés Segovia Archive
From the liner notes of the new FRESH! From Reference Recordings release Andrés Segovia Archive: Spanish Composers featuring guitarist Roberto Moronn Pérez: Vicente Arregui The composer Vicente Arregui was a native of Madrid with origins in Navarre. He turned his attention to the guitar in the final years of his life, especially 1924-25. He wrote five pieces in which we can clearly hear reflected aspects of late Spanish Romanticism, in particular salon music which made…
Composer Pedro Sanjuán — Andrés Segovia Archive
From the liner notes of the new FRESH! From Reference Recordings release Andrés Segovia Archive: Spanish Composers featuring guitarist Roberto Moronn Pérez: Pedro Sanjuán Although Segovia was not yet famous in Europe prior to 1924, in Spain and in Latin-American countries he was already considered the ‘king of the guitar’, so itis no surprise that, after Moreno-Torroba, other Spanish composers committed themselves to writing new pieces for the guitar in the years 1919-1923. Amongst the…