Margie Butler: Carolan's Draught - Celtic Harp

World Travel - Bellydance

The songs on this album are not as well known as other works by these three composers, but this more intimate form of expression often goes straight to the heart and soul of their work. Tchaikovsky wrote songs throughout his life, and it is easy to find autobiographical parallels in his chosen themes of love and longing. Rimsky-Korsakov's songs are characterized by tender lyricism, while Rachmaninov's wordless Vocalise has become one of his most famous melodies. Margarita Gritskova was born in 1987 in St. Petersburg. She is a prizewinner of the Luciano Pavarotti Competition in Modena, and the Concurso Internacional de Canto 'Villa de Colmenar Viejo' in 2010. She has performed in Carmen under the direction of Mariss Jansons in St. Petersburg, and appeared at world renowned festivals across the globe.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Reiko Füting’s features chamber works performed by members of NYC’s most celebrated contemporary ensembles, including the Int’l Contemporary Ensemble, Either/Or Ensemble, and the Mivos String Quartet. This collection of works illustrates Füting’s interest in the philosophical and artistic conception of memory, as well as the significant role past works of literature, music, and art play in shaping his compositional forms and musical material. Interspersed between the album’s longer works are vocal settings of haikus from Reiner Bonack. In addition to composing, Reiko Füting (b. 1970) is an avid performer who has appeared in Europe, Asia, and the US. Since 2000, Füting has been teaching composition and theory at Manhattan School of Music, where he serves as the chair of theory department.

Aaron Copland's suite from the ballet Appalachian Spring won him a Pulitzer Prize and global recognition. The famous Quaker song 'Simple Gifts' and the American ambience of this suite contrast with the more modernist Symphonic Ode, which conveys rugged grandeur through an uncompromising structural unity. Neglected since the late 1960s, Paul Creston's music was once amongst the most frequently performed of any American composer. His poetic Symphony No. 3 is an orchestral Life of Christ, movingly expressed through themes inspired by Gregorian chant.

Classical Music

Vocal secular music in 17th century Spain began to be studied when Francisco Asenjo Barbieri and Felipe Pedrell showed interest for the issue at the end of the 19th century. Everything pointed to an exponential increase in those studies with the arrival of the 21st century, but it was not the case. Once the first years of the new millennium were over, in which the studies by Gerardo Arriaga, Lola Josa and a few others were published, the research drastically decreased. This album aims to rekindle that preservation. The works here are sung pieces, in verse and vernacular language, known in that period as human tones (or just tones) when they were profane, and divine tones when they were religious. Those composed in the first half of the 17th century were mostly polyphonic, which reveals that, in this period, polyphony was still thought to be highest. The Book of Human Tones, preserved at present at the National Library of Spain under the signature M 1262, constitutes, with its 222 works, a privileged sample of all the aspects. Who might be interested in these works has now the possibility to listen to them in a retrained performance on four voices with harp accompaniment, one of the instruments used in this repertoire. If, on the one hand, the vocal quartet shows that the “grace notes” (“quiebros”) and voice effects do not constitute an impediment for the care of tuning, on the other hand the harp adds to the score beautiful introductory and transition passages based on the features of passacaglias and 17th century dances.

The legacy of the conductor Sergiu Celidache is honored with a re-release of a 1965 live performance with the Orchestra e Teatro "La Fenice" di Venezia. With a program that included winning performances of Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition", along with the not usual inclusion of Cherubini's "Symphony in D" and the then premiere of a work by Swedish composer, Sven Erik Back, the maestro Celidache's reputation as an iconoclast among conductors with his programming choices is evident with this collection. With exception technical and sound quality, this live recording presents a significant opportunity towards a reappreciation of Celidache.

Over four centuries separate these two representatives of English music at it's finest. William Cornysh and Benjamin Britten were prolific in both sacred and secular music. Cornysh is actually two people, often confused with one another and quite possibly father and son. The matter of telling which man wrote which works is impossible to settle, so for the purpose of this album they are linked as one. So whether it be the Elder or the Younger, we are fortunate that they not only excelled at writing complex and adventurous antiphons for the church but also beautiful secular songs for the Tudor court. For Britten writing in the 20th-century life was very different; he is a composer who encompassed so many facets of music excelling in opera, solo song and all manners of vocal and instrumental music. This album looks at the way these composers mixed sacred with secular. Whilst Cornysh's sacred music is elaborate and rhythmically complicated, his secular music is simple yet subtly evocative. Britten makes constant demands on vocal artistry best displayed in the last work he ever wrote for unaccompanied voices, Sacred and Profane.

The Danish organist Kristian Krogsoe is the cathedral organist for the second biggest Danish town, Aarhus. The cathedral has the biggest Danish cathedral organ build by Danish organ builder Frobenius. All of the music on this new release is by an organ master, and it all comes back to Bach- it is all either by J.S. Bach himself or inspired by Bach with arrangements done by Guilmant, Middleschulte and Max Reger. The famous Chaconne for solo violin is here receiving a truly stunning performance in an idiomatic arrangement by the German Middleschulte. Overpowering is the Liszt organ work Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, not to be diminished by the Max Reger Fantasy and Fugue on BACH. These works are all brilliantly recorded, and the release includes an extensive booklet.

The piano music of Federico Mompou (1893-1987) holds a unique place in 20-th century piano literature. The apparent simplicity of Mompou’s music with its affinity to naïve “folk” elements – popular songs and dances, children’s games, spells and incantations - is deceptive: like Satie - the composer with whom he is most often compared - there is always a sense of a greater complexity hidden just below the surface. However Mompou himself was uninterested in analyzing his music, claiming, “ I don’t know where it comes from – that’s one of the secrets of art” and in describing his style as primitivista, he signalled a desire to return to first principles - a “recommencement” as he described it. Although he spent many years in Paris and was close to the galaxy of composers living in that city in the 1920s– becoming more or less and an honorary member of les Six - he remained virtually immune to outside influences.

Classical Music

Classical Music