Curt Cacioppo: Italia

Keyboard Cubed is Cervetti’s second recording for Navona and takes the listener into a world of kinetic and emotionally charged sound forged from 3 keyboard instruments. Sometimes it is the pianoforte, the double keyboard of the harpsichord and the organ.

Observing the landscape of contemporary classical, one might assume that the art music community has shifted its focus away from the melodic, harmonious, and accessible. CONVERGENCE, an album of works by David Nisbet Stewart and George Gershwin, presents just the opposite: imaginative, expressive works that appeal to performers and audiences alike. Alongside Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Stewart's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Suite for Piano-Brass Quartet prove that contemporary composers can maintain stylistic integrity with a broadappeal. Enhanced content includes study scores.

Alen Bonde: Sound Spectrum

Heavy Pedal: Works for Organ

John Carollo: Starry Night

On his latest Navona Records release, Ritornello, composer and pianist Curt Cacioppo revisits his beloved Italy, recalling places, friends, Italian tales, Don Giovanni and more to create a detailed sonic story about his experiences and Italian heritage. Divertimenti in Italia reflect on different regions of Italy. From the Dalle Dolomiti All' Etna comes a group of seven piano pieces. Women at the Cross is a collection of depictions of women who are significant in the Passion of Jesus Christ.

Divergence

On Navona Records' WITHIN EARTH, Houston string quartet Apollo Chamber Players, described as "... infectious... intimate... provocative... fun... " (Gramophone Magazine) presents an album that demonstrates the contemporary possibilities in string music, continuing Apollo's innovative 20x2020 project. The album contains three new multicultural commissions, as well as a contemporary work by Alexandra Du Bois. Leo Brouwer's Nostalgia de las Monta�as is an homage to his affection for Brazil's lush mountains and landscapes, and reflective of his love of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian dances and rhythms. The three-movement work plays to the Apollo Chamber Players' passion for contemporary music as well as to the individual talents of the performers. The irregular metric patterns, distantly reminiscent of Brazil's varied dance music, require an extraordinary steadiness and sense of rhythm, which is demonstrated impeccably. Matthew Dudzik's cello part impressively keeps the rest of the music in line. But also the viola, played by Whitney Bullock, gets it's share of glory: in Christopher Walczak's Four Dreams, it is the middle voice that ties the three-movement quartet together, this time thematically. Remarkably, during the entire album, it is almost impossible to differentiate between the first and second violin: both Anabel Ramirez Detrick and Matthew J. Detrick, respectively, play with great empathy to both the music and their fellow quartet members. M�y [Cloud] by Vu Nh�t T�n and Vanessa V� (the latter a Emmy and Grammy Award winner and Academy Award Contributor) is scored for string quartet and the ��n b?u, a Vietnamese monochord zither. The result is ethereal, otherworldly, and like a cloud, changes constantly over the course of nearly 20 minutes, eventually fading away without a trace. The final track, the album's namesake Within Earth, Wood Grows by Alexandra du Bois is the musical interpretation of a line in the I-Ching. Again, the ��n b?u features prominently, and yet, this time, it is the overall team spirit that shines through, between Apollo and the guest ensembles WindSync, Kinetic and Loop 38. Indubitably, it is the same spirit of unity which lends the Apollo Chamber Players their emotionally charged, homogenous sound, and the same spirit which led them to commission the contemporary works presented here.

A stroll along the Seine – Notre Dame reflected in the waters below – the Eiffel Tower illuminated in evening skies – bistro conversations echoing in the streets of the Left Bank. + Parisian scenes such as these come to mind when listening to the nuances of pianist Kathryn Goodson’s debut Navona Records release, Belle Nuit, a collection of works from La Belle Époque and beyond, with arrangements for piano and wind instruments. + Ms. Goodson & friends express the imagery of love, loss, and passion through works by Debussy, Duparc, Fauré, Franck, Messiaen and more.

Warshauer’s music is shot through with and inspired by mystical and spiritual matters that span a love and respect for Mother Earth and the Jewish faith.

A native of Wilmington, North Carolina, Meira Warshauer now lives in Columbia, South Carolina. She studied with William Thomas McKinley, Gordon Goodwin, Mario Davidovsky and Jacob Druckman.
 
This is not the first disc exclusively dedicated to her music. Streams in the Desert was an all-Warshauer CD of music for orchestra and chorus inspired by the Torah which appeared on the Albany label in 2007. There have been others.
 
Symphony No. 1 Living Breathing Earth is in four movements the first of which seethes with modernistic chaffing cicada noises and the rumbles of the jungle; the latter evocative of Villa-Lobos. By contrast the following movement (Tahuayo River at Night) has a great pervasive melodic calm. It’s a little like Mahler’s Adagietto meets Delius in a gentle drift downriver. The third movement has a chattering interplay of strings with butterflies and birds soaring above: Ravel’s Mère l’Oye blended with Villa-Lobos. The finale returns to a rangy melody but interpolates a gentle breathing pattern carried by the violins. Trumpets piercingly italicise the dramaturgy of the melody and drive the poignant message home amid flickers of wispy birdsong. The work serves as celebration and warning: a prayer for wisdom to heal our planet. The dedication is to the living breathing earth and her Creator.
 
We are told that Tekeeyah is the first concerto ever written for shofar and orchestra; anyone know of any others?. Never less than sincerely ambitious this is Warshauer’s “call for an awakening to our true essence as human beings.” The shofar (which you may recall being used abstemiously in Elgar’s The Apostles) is the horn of a ram or other kosher animal. It is a call to humanity to rouse itself from “the slumber of complacency” and in this three movement work the music is also bound up in Jewish religious references. Here the soloist, with whom Warshauer collaborated during the writing process, plays the horn of an African antelope.
 
Tekeeyah has a similar stylistic glossary to that of the Symphony. Gentle consonant strings sigh in a starry glimmer amid impressionistically gauzy writing: part Messiaen and part Ravel. There are Delian harp scintillations, around the rolling growl and bray of the shofar. There’s a real bite to the solo writing in Breaking Walls (II). It’s very animated yet a soft glow is never far away. The finale sports a slipping-sighing sentimental melody. A touch here of RVW. Had he lived long enough not only might he have given us the Saxophone Concerto he seemed to promise but also a concerto for shofar. It’s almost odd that neither Hindemith nor Hovhaness were moved in that direction. In any event in this concluding movement we encounter a Milhaud-like chugging rumba: very positive and happy. The shofar brays in majesty at the end and the strings rise high with solo and string mass echoing each other in exalting pain. The trumpets again italicise the splendour.
 
The present Navona disc presents two recentish substantial works though not of epic duration. Warshauer’s music is shot through with and inspired by mystical and spiritual matters that span a love and respect for Mother Earth and the Jewish faith.
 

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

It Is Time

S. SCOTT Afternoon of a Fire 1. New York Drones. Vocalise on “In a Silent Way” 2. Aurora Ficta. “La Guitarra” 2. Baltic Sketches • Bowed Piano Ens; 1 Saraiya Ruano (native American fl); 2 Victoria Hansen (sop) • NAVONA 5937 (51:30)


Sad to say, this may be the final recording released by the Colorado-based Bowed Piano Ensemble, as Stephen Scott, its founder, director, and in-house composer, will be retiring this year, and no one is in line waiting to fill his shoes. A performance by this ensemble looks something like a team of doctors performing open heart surgery on a grand piano. Up to 10 musicians simultaneously brush, pluck, or strike its strings (or other parts of the piano), or bow its strings using nylon filaments or other implements. In fact, the only way in which the piano is not played is by means of its 88 keys! This is not a stunt, however. The results are musically viable, thanks to Scott’s strengths as a composer—he has been influenced both by Steve Reich and by jazz—and to the nearly orchestral range of sounds the Ensemble produces. Electric and acoustic guitars, harpsichords, violins, violas, cellos, double basses, percussion instruments, synthesizer-like effects, even eerie approximations of the human voice all live within the Ensemble’s piano. The Ensemble was founded in 1977.


This CD, which goes by the title Fire & Ice , in an excellent introduction to the Ensemble’s work, even as it brings its output to a close. The most recent work, Afternoon of a Fire , was inspired by a devastating fire that occurred in Waldo Canyon, just outside of Colorado Springs, in the summer of 2012. Scott’s eight-minute composition is, to a degree, illustrative, but it is more a reaction to the fire than a description of it. Three passages for native American flute complement the music, and are an allusion to Ute Indian tribe, which had been associated with the area. There are several passages that are reminiscent of Reich (who is specifically honored in New York Drones , the following work on the CD). The oldest work, Baltic Sketches , is a continuous set of five short pieces that Scott composed for Estonian and Lithuanian musicians in 1997. Much of Scott’s music for the Bowed Piano Ensemble tends to unfold slowly, perhaps because of his interest in jazz, but the Baltic Sketches are precise and immediately effective.


Two of the works include Scott’s wife, soprano Victoria Hansen. In Vocalise on “In a Silent Way,” she sings several wordless phrases from the Weather Report composition to the Ensemble’s accompaniment, before the Ensemble itself takes up the melody. In “La Guitarra,” she adopts a flamenco-like singing style to produce an earthier effect. These works demonstrate how well the Ensemble can play both starring and supporting roles.


Aurora Ficta is the “false dawn,” an astronomical phenomenon also known as zodiacal light, in which light from the sun reflects off dust particles, and a dim triangle of light rises above the horizon, although it is still night. Scott reserves some of his strangest and most interesting sounds for this work, which is a true and uncanny tone poem.


It’s sad to think that there will be no more releases from the Bowed Piano Ensemble, but perhaps someone will step into Scott’s position after all, or perhaps a similar ensemble will be founded somewhere else. Fire & Ice makes an excellent case for the worth of what Scott and his Ensemble have been doing for almost four decades. One might approach their work with skepticism, but one responds to it with amazement.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

As the title of this album suggests, An Arc of Quartets gives listeners unique access to a continuum of composer Michael G. Cunningham's intricate and inviting string music. Five international string ensembles present the album's seven compositions, including Sirius Quartet, the Moravian Quartet, the Millennium Quartet, the Pedroia Quartet and New England String Quartet. These groups' performances of Cunningham's work present the hallmarks of his style of string writing, which is defined by a focus on rhythm, melody, and texture, as well as his gentle yet often dissonant, harmonic language. Although these quartets contain a wide range of sounds and styles, Cunningham maintains a reliable attraction to tense, lyrical melodies, and energetic rhythms. One specific string effect that pervades these works is the glissando, or slide sound, that is produced easily on string instruments. In the middle of String Quartet No. 3, we can hear glissandi spangle an all-pizzicato section, while in the "Zestful" movement of String Quartet No. 5, these sliding gestures are decorated with a trill. This piece's marriage of Cunningham's typical style with uncontrollable, rhythmic energy marks it as one of the more abstract works on the album. Cunningham's quartets utilize special sounds as accents to a core of intriguing textures, evocative melodies, and momentum-building rhythms, all of which remain compelling throughout the album. The composer's impressive skill at creating musical lines is displayed particularly strong in the "Song and Fantasia" movement of his String Quartet No. 1, a piece defined by both soulful lyricism and intense contrapuntal motion.

Navona Records proudly presents renowned composer Ruth Lomon's Shadowing, her debut album on the label. The release showcases her remarkable skill in writing for the piano, pushing the instrument's timbre and color to its limits to create animated sound worlds such as those of the title work, Shadowing. Lomon writes of the colors in the pieces: "'Shadowing' means to have such a light touch, such a light tread, that one can move freely through the forest, observing without being observed...It is the equivalent of manifesting and then becoming like smoke, and then manifesting again..." Lomon incorporates more radical colors - such as prepared piano - in Five Ceremonial Masks, which is inspired by masks used by the Navajo people in their Yeibichai Night Chant ceremonies. Native American imagery also appears in the second movement of Esquisses, "La Fête," in which the rhythmic and melodic properties of the music are inspired by the Turtle Dance as seen by Lomon at New Mexico's Taos Pueblo. The first movement of Esquisses, "Les Cloches," incorporates overtone partials and change-ringing patterns of European flared tower bells, creating a distinctive pianistic color, culminating in the introspective, balladic "Memoires de..." to conclude the piece.

This compilation features 11 English choral works by 5 contemporary composers, performed by 6 unique ensembles showcasing the diversity and depth of the choral subgenre. On-disc enhanced content includes extended full-color liner notes, study scores for analysis and performance consideration, and more.

Continuum: Modern Orchestral Works

Trombonist Deb Scott makes her Parma debut with her new Navona release Playing Favorites, accompanied by pianist Ron Petti. She performs a variety of her favorite pieces that appeal to her background in jazz and to her considerable technical skill. She writes: “What I love about each one is its ability to engage a diverse audience making for enjoyable and exciting musical moments.” The central piece on the album is Stephen Lias’s River Runner, written in response to a paddling trip he took with Scott through Big Bend National Park’s Santa Elena Canyon. Across the piece, Lias explores nature landscapes and the excitement of adventure, culminating in the visceral and kinetic third and final movement “Rock Slide.” The album includes many additional pieces, as well. Derek Bourgeois’ crowd- pleasing Trombone Concerto, written for Christian Lindberg, appeals to pop, jazz, and classical audiences. William Goldstein’s emotional Colloquy for Solo Trombone uses elements of jazz to explore opposing feelings of positivity and angst against a backdrop of Americana. Finally, the album closes with Variations on "The Carnival of Venice" composed by Jean-Baptiste Arban. This arrangement by Donald Hunsberger was actually composed for trumpet and originally performed by Wynton Marsalis.

GUERNICA, 3 of Kaufman's orchestral works: The "Guernica" Piano Concerto, an anti-war piece; Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, "Kaddish," a work written in memory of the composer's parents; and "Seascape", which illustrates the calmness and turbulence of the sea.

Sound and space are two elements that emerge at the heart of Jane O’Leary’s THE PASSING SOUND OF FOREVER. The collection showcases O’Leary’s compositional gifts through a variety of her chamber compositions. O’Leary’s string writing soars in THE PASSING SOUND OF FOREVER, and demonstrates her remarkable sensitivity to the instruments’ sonic palette and expressive potential. Every color, from ethereal natural harmonics to frenetic bowing, is at O’Leary’s disposal, and is exploited beautifully to produce evocative and compelling soundscapes.O’Leary is imaginative and creative in her string writing, resonating the instruments’ strings in a wide variety of ways. Harmonics and arpeggiations create vast open spaces.  In the case of A Winter Sketchbook, violin sounds are integrated with those of the alto flute, matching colors and creating new blends of sound. A Winter Sketchbook resonates profoundly as it casts the indelible image of deep winter.THE PASSING SOUND OF FOREVER’s title track is composed for string quartet, which makes it a shining and exemplary representation of O’Leary’s expressive string writing. The Passing Sound of Forever, originating from a motif found in a Beethoven quartet, plays with fragmentary gestures which emerge and disappear, echo and reflect. The work is filled with a deep yearning, which is communicated by the accumulated gestures and sounds of the quartet’s four string instruments. The Passing Sound of Forever epitomizes O’Leary’s unique ability to evoke vivid emotions from the simplest aspects of string instruments’ sound.Not every work on THE PASSING SOUND OF FOREVER features strings, but all seem to engage with the same themes of space and sound. O’Leary’s clarinet and piano duo Murmurs and Echoes, for example, creates the sense that its two instruments are communicating across great time and distance, most notably so in its last movement.  When their respective gestures mirror one another’s, they do so with the distortion of an echo crossing a vast space. In this way, Murmurs and Echoes reminds of A Winter Sketchbook, as both works use modest forces to generate a surprisingly resonant musical space.

Violist Jutta Puchhammer's album Pieces de concours pour is a treasure trove of late romantic French viola music. Originating as exam compositions for students enrolled at the Conservatoire Superieur de Paris from 1896-1938, this album demonstrates Puchhammer's peerless virtuosity as a performer, as well as the expressive range of her instrument, which was largely dismissed by the mainstream of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers. Many of the compositions on Pieces de concours pour share the Classical form of Sitt's concerto, such as Henri Marteau's Chaconne in ut majeur, or the French romantic aesthetic of Busser's Appassionato, such as Paul Rougnon's Concertino Romantique. Romanian-born composer Stan Golestan's Arioso et Allegro marks an interesting departure from these other works, as it reflects the new aesthetics of the twentieth century. Arioso et Allegro is dominated by pentatonic scales, which may suggest the influence of indigenous Asian musics - as they do in Debussy's piano piece Pagodes - Eastern European folk music, or American jazz, which took France by storm in the 1920s and 30s.

American composer Marty Regan specializes in composing music for traditional Japanese instruments, a fascination he has developed since 2000. Regan describes his Japanese-style compositions as "hybrid musical soundscapes that reflect the age in which we live, an era based not necessarily on globalization, but of partnership based on global cultural interaction." In contrast, Splash of Indigo features a complementary side of Regan's output, containing only works for Western orchestral instruments and voice. Despite the album's instrumentation, Regan's connection to Japan remains strong in Splash of Indigo. Splash of Indigo proves Regan is more than capable of inventing and developing charming and complex networks of musical ideas. In it's varied collection of chamber and large ensemble works, Splash of Indigo shows Marty Regan is a composer of considerable breadth and skill beyond his dedicated efforts to build a bridge between American and Japanese musical culture.

Composer, pianist, teacher, poet, and writer, Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) is regarded as one of the most important musicians in American history, lauded in his lifetime as the first American composer to fuse African American folk idioms with the European art music tradition in a sophisticated way. On his debut album on Navona Records, MY CUP RUNNETH OVER, pianist Clipper Erickson presents the first complete collection of Dett’s piano works, a milestone for American music discography.

From the first time Dett heard Antonín Dvo?ák’s works performed at Oberlin College, he strived to incorporate African American folk music themes in the highest forms of musical art. The piano suites embrace almost all of the composer’s creative life, from Magnolia, written soon after his graduation from Oberlin, to the Eight Bible Vignettes, written during the last two years of his life. They show a great development, variety and richness of style, and his lyrical gift; truly reflecting his struggles, triumphs, and deepening philosophical interests. Erickson’s performances on this album deliver some of the most significant music of early 20th-century America to the world, reminding us of the prominent role of African American spirituals and folk music in contemporary American art, culture, and philosophy.

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Review:

It’s surprising that no one until Clipper Erickson has essayed Dett’s complete piano output on disc. However, the wait was worth it, for this music is simply wonderful, while Erickson’s idiomatic, colorful, technically adroit, and caring interpretations do the repertoire full justice. The music’s consistent creativity always holds interest. This historically and musically important release not only fills a crucial catalog gap but sets reference standards. No serious aficionado of the history of American piano music can afford to miss it.

– Gramophone (Jed Distler)

Premonitions American Chamber Works

Transits: Minimal to Mayhem, his fifth full Navona Records release, is an abridged sequence of five works from a set time and concrete place that maps composer Sergio Cervetti's creative progression over four decades of composing. The Concertino for piano, woodwinds and timpani (2013) is a rowdy and raucous array of South American rhythms tempered by a tender quote from Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. One of Cervetti's last minimalist works, Exiles (1980) begins with a slow piano rendition of a melodic theme from the Uruguayan patriotic song Mi Bandera, which is soon overwhelmed by electronic textures. In contrast, 1975's Guitar Music, (the bottom of the iceberg) is an early minimalist work for solo guitar that experiments with "restricted pitch-classes". The two works completing the album are based on the history and culture of the R�o de la Plata where Cervetti was born and raised. El R�o de los P�jaros Pintados (1979) seamlessly integrates the bandone�n with electronics. Candombe for Orchestra is the 1996 orchestration of Candombe for Harpsichord (1984), both works indebted to a Uruguayan national dance of African origin.