Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Volume 4 of Bridge's CHINARY UNG series (a 2-album set), presents five major works composed between 1987 and 2018 by the Grawemeyer Award-winning Cambodian/American composer. Annotator Adam Greene writes: "Ung was inspired by his mentor, Chou Wen-chung, to pursue music that explored cross-cultural practices. Ung's own term for the "style" of music that evolved was 'futuristic folk music', which generally speaking, he approaches through two processes: quotation and evocation. Ung's music is deeply suffused with Asian features, including modal writing, the use of drones, microtonal inflections, elaborate percussion sections, and an expansive, even languid approach to musical-time."

Annotator Allan Kozinn writes: "if audiences listened as devotedly to contemporary piano scores as to the great works of the 17th through early 20th centuries, the two works Martin Perry plays here would be regarded as landmarks of the piano’s huge repertory. No doubt one day they will be – Paul Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis has a constituency among discerning pianists and listeners; for many, Hugo Weisgall’s Sonata for Piano remains an undiscovered gem, something that may change once listeners who think of Weisgall as principally a vocal composer realize that his instrumental music is as just as dazzling." Martin Perry delivers intensely musical, brilliantly realized readings of these two important twentieth century keyboard masterworks.

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REVIEW: Perry plays the Weisgall, a profound but rarely heard work from the composer's 70th year, masterfully.

— NMC (New Music Connoisseur)

The great American composer, George Crumb's most recent compositions have been two large piano compositions, "Metamorphoses, Books 1 and 2", completed in 2019. Volume 19 of Bridge's Complete Crumb Edition, a series of recordings supervised by the composer himself, is made up entirely of Metamorphoses Book 1, performed by Crumb specialist, Marcantonio Barone. The work consists of ten movements, each based on a famous painting by artists including Paul Klee, Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, James Whistler, Jasper Johns, Paul Gauguin, Salvador Dali, and Vasily Kandinsky. At 90, George Crumb continues to produce works of incredible detail and passion. Critic David Hurwitz wrote that "Bridge’s decision to embark on a complete edition of George Crumb’s music remains one of the most significant recording projects currently in progress, as well as one of the most artistically successful."

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REVIEWS:

Klee, Van Gogh, Chagall, Whistler, Gauguin and Kandinsky all give inspiration for a stylistically inclusive, vigorously inventive sequence: just 37½ minutes of music, but a disc of real substance.

– Sunday Times (UK)

The pianist Marcantonio Barone places Crumb’s evocative gestures with reverent care and gives them space to make their full effect, and he’s as responsive to the music’s savage or folk-like moments as he is to its quiet poetry. The recorded sound is ideally close so the piano’s resonances sound huge and all-enveloping, as they should. Those who already know Crumb’s music well might be a tad disappointed that this piece breaks no new ground creatively. But for those who don’t it offers a wonderfully concentrated, vivid introduction to his imaginative world.

– The Telegraph (UK)