Despite its long history, the trombone has a very limited chamber music repertoire. Jörgen van Rijen, principal trombonist of the Concertgebouworkest, has wished to rectify this deficiency by initiating a fruitful collaboration between his own instrument and the string quartet, the pinnacle of chamber music. Mirrored in Time thus presents a collection of powerful arrangements and attractive new works covering a wide range of styles. Together with the Alma Quartet, van Rijen has created a wonderful springboard for the further development of the trombone repertoire in chamber music. Framed by adaptations of contemporary pieces by Bryce Dessner and Chiel Meijering respectively, this recording presents five pairs of works. Each of these consists of an arrangement of an existing composition from bygone times mirrored by a recent or completely new work. John Dowland is echoed by Nico Muhly, Béla Bartók by Dimitar Bodurov, Gabriel Fauré by Jacob TV, Erik Satie by Florian Magnus Maier and Robert Schumann by Martijn Padding. With this programme, Mirrored in Time tells the story of what might have been – and how it is now.
A double stroke of luck: the Sauer organ in the "Glocke" concert hall in Bremen has survived almost unchanged since 1928, despite all attempts to adapt the instrument to contemporary taste and fashion. The original pitch of 435 Hz has also been preserved - actually too low for ensemble playing today. However, the Franz Kuhn Trombone Quartet led by the enterprising Juan Gonzáles Martínez can fall back on an original trombone set from the 1920s. With this and together with organist Lea Suter, the four gentlemen bring remarkable literature from the heyday of virtuoso trombone playing to life in an authentic way. A wonderful addition to the first organ recital on the previous album. For a long time, cantabile playing in particular was denied the trombone. It was the then acclaimed virtuoso Paul Weschke who was the first professor in Germany to revolutionize trombone playing. Weschke added instructions for innovative playing techniques to his numerous transcriptions; thus legato became possible without producing a glissando - an indispensable prerequisite for vocal playing. Together with the romantic trombone instrument developed by Franz Kuhn, Weschke's pioneering playing techniques produce an immensely colorful sound that harmonizes most advantageously with the warmth of the Sauer organ in Bremen's "Glocke". This can be experienced excellently in the arrangements from Rossini to Reger, which were found in Weschke's extensive archive and are performed by Martínez and Suter with style and admirable esprit. The trombone quartets by Arno Hansen and August Hänsel are an ideal complement to the virtuoso program, allowing us to immerse ourselves in a world of sound long thought to be past. In the carefully balanced and spatially impressive recording, it can be grasped with the ears - just like the dimensions of this special organ in one of the most beautiful concert halls in Germany.
Born in Belfast and raised in Greater Manchester, the world-renowned trombonist Peter Moore gained international attention at the age of twelve when, in 2008, he became the youngest winner of the competition BBC Young Musician. His early involvement in the brass band culture in Northern England was crucial to his rapid development. Appointed Co-Principal Trombone of the London Symphony Orchestra aged just eighteen, he departed after ten years to focus on his solo career. He has performed concertos with leading orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and given recitals at venues such as the Koninklijk Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, in London, and Wiener Musikverein. This album celebrates Peter's life-long association with the brass band movement, with a diverse programme that includes major works such as Gordon Langford's Rhapsody (written for Don Lusher) and the world premiere recording of Simon Dobson's Shift - a trombone concerto written for Peter Moore. Peter also pays tribute to other great trombonists: Arthur Pryor was a soloist with the Souza band, whilst I'm Gettin' Sentimental over You was a huge hit for Tommy Dorsey.
Born into a working-class family, Anders Eliasson’s earliest musical experiences originated from within himself: ‘they were my own singing, and tunes I heard on the radio’. At the age of nine he began to play the trumpet, and soon after he became the leader of a jazz band for which he wrote arrangements. Aged 14, he found a local organist to teach him harmony and counterpoint, and at 16 he left his hometown for Stockholm to study privately. In 1966 Eliasson enrolled at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, studying the various techniques and trends of modernism, from dodecaphony to musique concrete. But in the end he found it impossible to ‘break away from more than a thousand years of tradition’, as he put it: ‘Music is like H2O: melody, harmony and rhythm are a single entity. And it has to flow.’ The three works recorded here – all for the first time – are examples of the highly personal idiom he developed as a consequence.
REVIEW:
Eliasson’s Symphony No 3 operates on a continuous weave, the saxophone often riding its surface, whose tightness can put a clamp on the music. To my ears the modality sounds restrictive, rather than a parameter to prompt greater creativity. There are some fine moments, none better than the celestial transition from the ‘Fremiti’ third movement to the ‘Lugubre’ fourth (of five).
Similarly, Eliasson’s Trombone Concerto is a work of deeper structural principle than the label ‘concerto’ might denote and one in which the composer instructed the dedicatee Christian Lindberg to ‘play like a caged bird’. Once more the music can chase its own tail, without the degree of structural fascination or universal vision – the sort Nørgård finds from even more restrictive means – that might have rendered such a chase thrilling.
Thank heavens for Eliasson’s Symphony No 4, in which the composer’s obsessive compositional personality yields embracing fruits. Here the tonal journey is better defined, the development of a single motif clearer and more ripe, the textures more varied and the feeling generally more visceral.
All said and done, a mixed bag. But the soloists give their works everything and the conductors don’t shirk on Eliasson’s firm principles, even if Oramo has more to work with.
The desire to record all of the works for an instrument already during the lifetime of a composer points to his importance and charisma. Despite the uncertainty: will he write something else? This was also the case with TACET 129, after Erika Haase (1935 - 2013) set herself the life-long task of recording all the pieces for piano by another 'great' of contemporary Hungarian music, Gyorgy Ligeti. Now Gyorgy Kurtag, a master of the miniature almost like Anton Webern. All his works for flute, initiated and congenially played by Markus Bronnimann and friends. The very first note should, no, must contain the whole world. Many of Kurtag's pupils know this only too well, as they often didn't get past the first bars in their lessons. Because he succeeds in this concentration, this evaporation to the essentials, Kurtag only needs a few notes to create a complete little univers in which nothing is missing. The 36 tracks bear ample witness to this!
Bruckner: Ave Maria - Musik fur Chor und Blaserensemble
Carus
CD
$22.99May 10, 2024
Anton Bruckner 200 (1824-2024)
A wide-ranging selection of Anton Bruckner's sacred works for choir and brass ensemble is presented by the NDR Choir Hamburg under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann.The pieces extend almost chronologically over 50 years, allowing the compositional development of this deeply religious composer to be traced.
David Johansen, Professor of Trombone Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University, holds the Bachelor of Music Degree from Fort Hays State University, the Master of Science in Music Education from the University of Illinois and the Doctor of Musical Arts in Trombone Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa. Dr. Johansen has held the positions of Principal Trombone in the Hays Symphony Orchestra, Second Trombone in the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and currently holds the position of Second Trombone in the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, the Dubuque Symphony, the Southeastern Iowa Symphony, the Ottumwa Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Wind Symphony, the Natchez Opera, the Rapides Symphony of Alexandria, Louisiana and the Acadiana Symphony of Lafayette, Louisiana. On the present release, alongside pianist Daniel Lau, Dr. Johansen presents Six Sonatas for Trombone and Piano from composers including William Hartley, Jacques Casterede, Paul Hindemith, and more.
The Promises of Darkness marks the next chapter in the visionary collaboration between Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds and conductor/producer Mathias Reumert. Released by Ekkozone, this landmark album showcases world premiere recordings of four major works, tracing four decades of Reynolds's trailblazing contributions to contemporary music. The title work, The Promises of Darkness (1975), pays homage to Reynolds's mentor Roberto Gerhardt. Scored for an ensemble of 11 players, this piece masterfully conjures vivid colors and an almost cinematic sense of dread, revealing Reynolds as a composer unafraid to probe the edges of musical and emotional experience. From 1985 comes Mistral, for strings, brass, and amplified harpsichord. Although inspired by an encounter with the forceful Mediterranean wind, the piece is "neither illustrative nor programmatic," according to the composer. Mistral has previously been released in a lo-fi live recording, but the highly refined score - with it's crystalline articulate harpsichord - is finally brought to life in this new version, which Reynolds himself has hailed as "a triumph." A relentless exploration of the interplay between two harmonic strata, Dionysus (1990) involves "a blend of metaphor and pragmatics" and is captured in a breathtakingly precise performance, with expressive solos from flutist Helene Navasse and trumpeter Laszlo Molnar. Closing the album is the electroacoustic Positings (2013), where the Mathias Reumert Group is joined by computer musician and Reynolds collaborator Paul Hembree. Seamlessly blending live performance with electronic textures, Positings embodies Reynolds's innovative spirit, pushing the boundaries of sound and structure. This release follows the critically acclaimed Wind Concertos, the first in the Reynolds/Reumert series, which earned Album of the Year (The Five Best) from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 2024. With The Promises of Darkness, Ekkozone solidifies it's reputation as a home for groundbreaking contemporary music, curated with Reumert's exacting vision.
Duality as essence The fullness of an almost empty space within which only two presences distil their separated essences; the completeness of only two subjects representing all the rest; the awareness in subordinating oneself to the magnetism of the subtracted and the missing; the consistency of silence, immobility and timelessness; the essential value of otherness. Each of the titles of these duets, all of a single word, carries semantic potentialities inherent in duality, a contradiction resolved in the ideal of recomposing dualism into unity. Ali (Wings), equivalent laterality as duality, which divides in two and equally holds together; Diade (Dyad), couple, duality, and in biology the chromosome of germ cells formed by two homologous chromatids united, maternal and paternal; Talea (Cutting), in botany the birth of a life through another that mutilates and grafts itself; Appulso (Appulse), in astronomy the apparent approach of a star to a planet, so that the star seems to touch it; Giano (Janus), the twoheaded god, who can look at the two entities future and past but not at the present, in charge of thresholds, of passages, who presides over all beginnings; Specchio (Mirror), the reflecting "other", in the mutual comparison of every couple or duo; Cenere (Ash), matter inclusive of the original fullness - simulacrum of what it was - and of it's dissipation, emblem of the invisibility to come; Gemina (Twin), that which is double, an adjective declined here, in Italian, in the feminine, leaving open the interpretation (double musical expression?, a double union of performers?... ), and in genetics the "bivalent pair" of chromosomes, which merges and then splits; Stati (States), in addition to being a noun - the word that in Italian in one of it's meanings is related to staticity, from the Latin status, "that which stands still" -, is also a past participle that makes the subjects exist in the same time for how they are now and for what they have "been", "stati" (thinking of this piece, divided into three parts, in the sequence stasismotionstasis: «You alone knew that motion is not different from stasis.» Eugenio Montale, from Satura); Stigma (Stigma), explicit imprint of an implicit owner of it, but also, in botany, the part of the pistil destined to receive and germinate; Etra (Air), a kind of air that, here, makes physical wind and metaphysical wind copresent, which mix in a haunted vortex... Osvaldo Coluccino
Not one to be typecast by a decidedly mainstream background that included stints with Wynton Marsalis & the Lincoln Center Jazz Orch., Wycliffe shows more sides to a versatility first hinted at by the the sounds of his album "The Gospel Truth". This new work finds his trombone in a number of settings, from funk to Ellington & even an impressive solo display. Joining him is Ryan Kisor, Victor Goines & Herb Harris.
On his eighth Criss Cross leader date, Wycliffe Gordon (awarded 2012 Trombonist of the Year by both the DownBeat Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists' Asssociation) distills his exhaustive knowledge of the oeuvre of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn on a wellcrafted, ten-piece program spanning a timeline from 1927 (Creole Love Call) to 1967 (The Intimacy of the Blues).
It would be fellow Criss Cross associate Walt Weiskopf who would bring Conrad Herwig into the label's fold back in 1992. The trombonist would then go on to record his own Criss Cross debut, Heart of Darkness (CRC 1155) in 1998. Now some 15 years into his tenure, Herwig has recorded eight remarkable and engagingly diverse albums with A Voice Through the Door being his latest breakthrough. Highlighting a distinguished composer, this inspired recital includes seven new Herwig originals along with a reworking of the standard All or Nothing At All. Then emphasis is on shared communication, an aspect that is clearly evident through Herwig's long track record with pianist Orrin Evans and drummer Donald Edwards. Adding something new to the mix, however, are new associations with tenor man Ralph Bowen and bassist Kenny Davis, thenselves frequent collaborators going back to their days with the band Out of the Blue.
Trombonist Conrad Herwig continues his spiritual journey here on his fourth Criss Cross release. Long reknown for his work with Slide Hampton's World of Trombones, the Mingus Big Band, Eddie Palmieri and, more recently, Joe Lovano & Tom Harrell, Herwig's trombone playing is bold, brash & unpredictable. Through musical conversations with the wonderful rhythm section of Bill Charlap, James Genus & Gene Jackson, Conrad's new album speaks equally well to his prowess as a leader & composer.
Wycliffe Gordon's fourth Criss Cross release features tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake and drummer Bill Stewart, who appeared also on the trombonist's critically acclaimed 2002 recording, "United Soul Experience" (CRC #1224), plus Hammond B3 organist Sam Yahel and guitarist Peter Bernstein. The mixture of familiar and new company fuels Gordon's prodigious talents as a composer, arranger, and soloist. Utilizing various combinations of instruments, he creates an eclectic yet coherent program out of funky jazz grooves, blues, and ballads.
After his successful gospel and mainstream albums, trombone star Wycliffe Gordon presents his new all-star band on "United Soul Experience" playing some groovy, soul-oriented, hard swinging jazz. The band features new star tourist Seamus Blake, David Kikoski on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass and Bill Stewart on drums.
This is trombonist Wycliffe Gordon's fifth outing as a leader on Criss Cross and perhaps his most personal statement. Augmenting a strong roots-to-modern jazz sextet with a gospel choir from Georgia, his home state, Gordon presents a joyful noise, referencing the vocabularies of Armstrong, Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton with an eye keenly honed in on the present day. In the band: Marcus Printup on trumpet, Victor Goines on saxes and clarinet, Eric Reed on piano with bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Alvin Atkinson Jr..
On Wycliffe Gordon's eighth effort as a leader for Criss Cross the multi-talented former Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra trombonist who they call Cone teams up with versatile trumpeter Terell Stafford (aka Staff) in a brassy quintet with a smoking rhythm section that features label regulars, pianist Mike LeDonne and Kenny Washington (back from Gordon's previous date) and the gifted young bassist David Wong, making his first Criss Cross appearance. The players all shine, both individually and as a cohesive unit, on a appealing swing-to-bop program comprised of jazz originals and classics, standards and blues.
Wycliffe Gordon's sixth effort for Criss Cross features the trombonist with the biggest sound around in a program comprised predominantly of original blues. Gordon demonstrates his mastery of that most versatile African American art form, playing slow, fast, sad, reverent and raucous variations, accompanied by his regular working trio of Jazz Messengers alumnus Johnny O'Neal at the piano and the New Orleans rhythm team of bassist Reginald Veal, and drummer Herlin Riley. Joining the quartet, making his Criss Cross debut, is Muskegon Heights and Michigan tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard, whose deep dark soulful tone perfectly complements the similarly endowed leader.
After receiving four Grammy nominations for his highly successful series of recordings that "latinize" the music of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Horace Silver, Conrad Herwig turns his attention to the legendary Charles Mingus. An imposing figure in jazz, Mingus was known for being complicated, volatile and a touched-by-genius innovator. As an homage to this influential artist, Conrad Herwig provides a fiery excursion into the world of Afro-Caribbean rhythms skillfully applied to Mingus' wildly imaginative compositions. Joining Herwig is special guest trumpeter Randy Brecker together with long-time "Latin Side" band colleagues pianist Bill O'Connell, reedman Craig Handy and the trumpet/flugelhorn of Alex Sipiagin with the rhythm section of Luques Curtis, Robby Ameen and Camilo Molina. Collectively they bring a vibrant spirit and authority to this repertoire which is unique among today's salsa ensembles. Featured tunes run the gamut from the thoughtful and intimate "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love" to the unbridled joy of "Boogie Stop Shuffle" with the somewhat lop-sided introduction to the opening track, "Gunslinging Bird," being the perfect harbinger of things to come. This latest installment in Conrad Herwig's "Latin Side" series pays tribute to the work of Charles Mingus with progressive arrangements, propulsive rhythms, exciting solos and the consummate musicianship of the leader and his bandmates.
