Arkiv's Top 5 Recordings of the Week
Philip Glass – Glassworlds volume 1
Philip Glass has made an immense and stylistically wide-ranging contribution to piano repertoire. The performer on this album is Nicolas Horvath, a Scriabin Competition first prizewinner; this is the first release in the complete Glass solo piano edition which will include many premières.
George Walker – Piano Works
A review in Pizzicato Magazine said “Walker’s piano music is communicative, colorful, expressive and, above all, characteristic. He was himself an outstanding pianist with an impressive career in Europe and the United States. This may have been conducive to his talent as a composer.”
Frederic Rzewski – The People United Will Never be Defeated!
The People United Will Never Be Defeated! was written in only two months after Rzewski met Chilean composer Sergio Ortega. Three months before Salvador Allende’s death, Ortega heard a street-singer shout El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido!, which made him think immediately of a tune to accompany these words. A day later, the pop group Quilapayun played the melody. Since then, the tune has become an impassioned international symbol against any form of dictatorship.
Leah Auerbach – Homo Ludens
Lera Auerbach, the Russian-American poet, composer, writer, visual artist, concert pianist and graduate of the Julliard School and the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (Germany) performs regularly in major halls throughout the world. To date she has published more than 100 works for orchestra, opera and ballet, as well as choral and chamber music, which the world’s leading musicians have performed.
Ann Southam - Soundspinning
Composer Ann Southam (1937–2010) had an open mind for all forms of artistic expression, especially music and sound. An innately curious person, she enjoyed experimenting with sound and making musical discoveries. She was equally fascinated by a single ringing piano note as by a cycling sequencer in the electronic music studio. In an interview she gave in 1997 she said, “I always knew I wanted to be an artist. Art is magic.”
Do you have a favorite piece of music by a living composer? Let us know and we will add it to the list.