New Age / Meditation CDs
New Age / Meditation CDs
41 products
COSTA-RICA SOUNDSCAPES
MAYAN FORESTS: GUATEMALA
BIRDS OF PARIS
SOUND ENCYCLOPEDIA BIRDS EUROP
Messiaen: Orchestral Works / Nagano, BRSO
Few performers are more familiar with the musical language of the French composer Olivier Messiaen than the American conductor Kent Nagano. Nagano has had Messiaen's orchestral works and oratorios in his program for several decades now, and he also participated in the world premiere of “Saint François d'Assise”, Messiaen's only opera. During the year 1982 Nagano spent his time with Messiaen in Paris, where not only an artistic relationship but also a close personal one developed between the two musicians.
BR-KLASSIK has now released three masterpieces by the French composer with the magical sound, presented by Kent Nagano to the Munich concert audience in recent years as conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: the oratorio “La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ" (The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ) for chorus, seven solo instruments and orchestra, the song cycle "Poèmes pour Mi" for soprano and orchestra, as well as "Chronochromie" for large orchestra. These three live recordings document outstanding artistic events from the Munich concert program of June 2017, July 2018 and February 2019.
ULTIMATE MOST RELAXING NEW AGE MUSIC IN / VARIOUS
The Eleanor Hovda Collection
HOVDA Onyx. Song in High Grasses. Snapdragon. Leaning Into and Away. Ariadne Music. Coastal Traces Tidepools 1. Shenai Sky. Record of an Ocean Cliff. Crossings in a Mountain Dream. Glacier Track. Glosses Glacier. Beginnings. Coastal Traces Tidepools 2. Borealis Music. Boundaries. Cymbalmusic: Centerflow/Trail II. Journey Music. Lemniscates. Regions. Jo Ha Kyu. Ikima. Breathing The Proclamation: excepts. Dancing in Place. Spring Music with Wind. 40 Million Gallons of Music • Prism Players; Libby Van Cleve (ob, English horn, shenai); Jack Vees (el gtr, b gtr); Eleanor Hovda (pn, cymbals, shakuhachi); Relache; Cassatt Qrt; California EAR Unit; Jan Weller, David Gilbert (fl); Elizabeth Panzer (hp); Lee Humphries (pn); et al. • INNOVA 808 (4 CDs: 4:20:03)
I’ve written about Eleanor Hovda (1940–2009) in these pages before; indeed, in the program notes for this release I’m quoted at length. For that I’m honored, because I feel she is a major composer in need of a certain rescue now. She died of cancer far too young; she forsook positions in the Ivy League and New York artistic life for grassroots arts administering in her native and beloved Minnesota; she wrote music that, despite genuine complexity, often looked simple or naïve in score. In short, by life and aesthetic choices she herself made, and by the cards dealt her over which she had no control, she was marginalized in the broader culture of American music. But we still need her.
Parts of this comprehensive collection were originally released by O.O. Discs and I reviewed some of it in Fanfare 22:4; I’d urge interested readers to check this review out in the online archive, as it goes into much more technical detail about the music than I will here. The second disc, Coastal Traces , is more of an extended collective improvisation for dance featuring Libby Van Cleve, double reeds; Jack Vees, guitars; and Hovda on piano interior. But the other three discs consist of more clearly defined pieces, even though they still have the composer’s trademark openness.
I now think of Hovda to some degree as the American Scelsi. By that I mean there’s an emphasis on pure sound as an expressive medium, shaped at the macro and micro level to bring out what Wallace Stevens called “the beauty of inflections.” There’s also a mystical/spiritual bent, but it’s never overbearing. Unlike Scelsi’s, Hovda’s music is often fragile, gentle, and delicate. As a result, when it really rips loose, it carries a shocking impact. I now feel that she’s an example of what I call “sonic charisma,” a capacity to take basic sonic materials that should be simplistic, facile, messy, and then imbue them with such authenticity that you can’t resist them. (Christian Wolff is another such composer in my book.)
The performances are consistently imaginative and committed, and make the case for the music persuasively. Some of the recordings are more “archival” than others, but I’d never for a second preclude their inclusion because of some hiss or ambient noise. The works range from the exceptional oboe work Jo Ha Kyu (thrillingly performed by Libby Van Cleve) to the Cassatt Quartet’s glasslike rendition of Lemniscates to what sounds like a vast Tibetan tantric ritual in 40 Million Gallons of Music (in fact the real story is just as wild, as the piece is a sonic exploration of a giant underground water storage tank in Fayetteville, Arkansas, recorded just after 9/11). Hopefully that gives some idea of the range. As a grand bonus, the scores for works on three of the four discs are viewable on your computer as pdfs (as are extended program notes for the entire set). One senses both how free and how precise the composer was; her craft is evident in these striking scores in her own hand. Though there is one score, Cymbalmusic, whose graphic approach is incredibly beautiful and imaginatively focused, in all the scores one sees a magical touch at work, mixing scribbling doodles with more traditional notation.
A final word of thanks and recognition to Philip Blackburn and the entire Innova organization, as this is yet another of the incredibly important rescue operations they’re performing for composers who might otherwise slip through the cracks (I think of their great Henry Brant series, for example). Every music library in America, for example, should have this collection. Bravo; it gives us all a little faith in lean times. And this is unquestionably on the next Want List.
FANFARE: Robert Carl
Music of the Persian Mystics
CANADIAN SOUNDSCAPES
Sprengers: Meditations for String Quartet / Ma'at Ensemble
“Marcus Aurelius, warrior emperor, philosopher and poet during the Second Century AD, reminds us that people with enormous power do not always fall victim to their own vanity. Total power may usually corrupt totally, but not always. I find this heartening, especially in 2022 during another time of war, where titanic egos guiding powerful militaries battle each other with real life consequences for ordinary people and elites alike. Aurelius was indeed a bloodily victorious commander of Roman legions, defeating numerous enemies on the battle field during his reign. But the emperor continued his introspective journey throughout most of his life, honing his “inner world,” to use a modern phrase, as he tried to maintain a balance between being the most powerful person on the planet and a man answerable to his own conscience and higher philosophy.
"Brussels-based classical, jazz, funk and new-age composer Koben Sprengers notes that Aurelius’ “Meditations,” as they are popularly known, were written not for publication but “for himself, as a sort of diary or personal notebook; to frequently remind himself of the important lessons and wisdom he had learned from the ancient philosophers. Since his writings were aimed at himself, I found that these paragraphs had a very intimate, familiar voice to them. Like a grandfather patiently explaining something to his overly curious grandchild, almost soothing….” I hope Marcus Aurelius’ stable intelligent voice and vision, as portrayed in his own words and through music composed by the young firebrand Koben Sprengers, gives you solace and inspiration during this remarkable and troubling period of history.” (Bob Attiyeh, producer)
A Serenity of Soul / Jordan, Westminster Choir
Westminster Choir 100th Anniversary Recording
Music has the ability to illuminate aspects of the human condition in ways that only sound married to texts can achieve. One of the greatest preachers of the twentieth century, William Sloan Coffin, often remarked that music in most cases was more powerful than the spoken word. This recording represents just that. All the music on this recording reflects, in sound, that serenity (and, yes, beauty) is within all of us if we choose to go there. This recording celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Westminster Choir in 1920 by John Finley Williamson, albeit a bit later.
McBane: Bathymetry / Sandbox Percussion
Composer Matt McBane and the renowned Sandbox Percussion ensemble team up on Bathymetry — a 40-minute piece in eight movements scored for monophonic Moog analog synthesizer and percussion. Drawing on classical minimalism, electronic production, ASMR Youtube aesthetics and the diverse palette of ambient modular synth music, Bathymetry features McBane’s Moog synth with Sandbox Percussion performing on a veritable playground of found instruments (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles, etc.), orchestral percussion (vibraphone, tam tam, etc.), and drum sets.
