UNFINISHED SONG

...Eva Marton, as we know from her other opera recordings, possesses a voice of power and warmth which she can use with a deal of flexibility. Gioconda is obviously a role with which she closely identifies. Throughout, her portrayal of the unhappy, jealous Gioconda is histrionically strong and involving and she rides the climaxes in a way Caballe (Bartoletti/Decca) couldn't quite manage: this is the true spinto sound of which we hear far too little today...

Her Enzo was to have been Domingo but he had to cancel because of a bereavement. I am not altogether disappointed because Lamberti offers us a particular style in tenor singing that is almost lost, specifically Italianate in timbre and recalling di Stefano. His tone is always open and bright, he sings off the words, and he phrases with an innate ardour that's just right for the part. He manages some nice pianissimos, sings "Cielo e mar" with a long breath, and leads the Third Act concertato "Gia ti veggo" with a properly plaintive tone. He has almost as much voice as Ferraro (Votto) and is much more subtle. For better and worse, he isn't Pavarotti (Bartoletti), but I took to his reading. Milnes's Barnaba remains a well thought-through portrait of unmitigated villainy. He was in marginally steadier voice for Bartoletti on Decca, but the performance is still one of his most telling. Livia Budai, like her Hungarian compatriot, Marton, doesn't care to make much of the text, but the voice is as vibrant as any in this role: Cossotto (Votto) has the edge simply through being Italian. Ramey makes much of little as Alvise. Anne Gjevang is a steady La Cieca, and gives her solo the grave beauty it deserves...

-- Gramophone [2/1990]

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 2 MAAZEL,

Bellini’s penultimate opera was received unenthusiastically at its premiere in 1833, and has never attained the popularity of Norma. Early this century it disappeared completely until revived in 1935, as part of the centennial commemoration of the composer’s death. In recent years, its tragic heroine, the wife of a Milanese duke, falsely accused of infidelity and executed at her husband’s command, has been portrayed by such notable bel canto specialists as Joan Sutherland, Leyla Gencer and June Anderson. This dramatically vigorous and well-constructed work contains some of Bellini’s finest and most characteristic melodies, among them a ravishingly beautiful trio, ‘Angiol di pace’. Its neglect for so many years is difficult to comprehend.

Zedda conducts an ardent performance, sung by a first-rate cast. As Orombello, La Scola sings throughout with pure tone and a fine appreciation of Bellini’s long phrases. The experienced Cappuccilli is the vengeful Duke, heard at his best in ‘Qui m’accolse’, the aria in which he hesitates before signing the warrant for his wife’s execution, and the Romanian soprano Mariana Nicolesco brings a vibrant and flexible voice and a forceful personality to the role of Beatrice. Highly recommended to all who know and love Bellini’s more frequently performed operas.

-- Charles Osborne, BBC Music Magazine

CHOEURS DE L'OPERA DE VIENNE -

ALFONSO X EL SABIO: CANTIGAS D

CHOEURS DE L'OPERA DE VIENNE -

Track Listing
1. Bugya
2. Mizan Qa'im Wa-nisk
3. Twisya No. 3 Of The Nuba
4. Mizan D-dary
5. Mawwal Al-Istihlal
6. Mawwal On Tab' Al-Hiyaz Al-Kabir
7. Mawwal On Tab' Raml Al-Maya

Ibn Baya Ensemble: Eduardo Paniagua, Luis Delgado, Gloria Lergo, Mohamed El Arabi Serghimi, Omar Metioui.

Track Listing
1. Rickitick Tick
2. There It Is
3. Feeling of Something New, The
4. Take a Chance
5. Groove Until You Move
6. In Honor of Duke
7. On Two Separate Occasions
8. Promises, Promises
9. Wild Kingdom
10. Duke de Suite
11. Beauty of the Spirit, The
12. Nothin' Like It

Marcus Roberts Trio includes: Marcus Roberts (piano); Roland Guerin (acoustic bass); Antonio Sanchez (drums, percussion); Jason Marsalis (drums).

Personnel: Marcus Roberts (piano); Roland Guerin (acoustic bass); Jason Marsalis, Antonio Sanchéz (drums, percussion).

Audio Mixers: Les Stephenson; Marcus Roberts.

Liner Note Author: Marcus Roberts.

Recording information: Les Stephenson's Studio, Tallah (04/01/1999/04/03/1999).

Editors: Les Stephenson; Marcus Roberts.

Photographers: Douglas Foulke; David McCord.

Arranger: Marcus Roberts.

In Honor of Duke, a tribute to Duke Ellington lovingly performed by the Marcus Roberts Trio, displays two facets of Roberts' performing style. One is his unrepentant traditionalism. Roberts likes his jazz pure, and delving into Ellington's music provided a whole palette of bits to shine and rearrange without having to cross any musical boundaries. This album also shows off Roberts' technical virtuosity -- he is an expert arranger and an extremely gifted pianist, and he has surrounded himself with the kind of musicians who can make his interpretations communicate the delicacy and energy of the compositions they are based on. Roberts actually makes it his goal to make the trio a more balanced showcase for all of its musicians. "Rickitick Tick," the first track on In Honor of Duke, shows off this style. The bass and drums lead the song, and when the piano line comes in, it simply fills out the arrangement instead of relegating the rhythm lines to the background. Drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland Guerin never fully sink into the roles of accompanists; instead, they weave in and out of solos throughout the album in a seamless manner. Most of the album stays with the traditional trio format; however, for tracks four and five, Antonio Sanchez is brought in as percussionist and drummer, respectively, to lend a deeper texture and a Latin flavor to the songs. Sanchez, who has sparkled as a member of pianist Danilo Perez's trio, is a fine addition to the formula Roberts has concocted. Roberts isn't really breaking any new ground here, but you may not care. The music is lush and the musicianship is precise, making for a very enjoyable album for Ellington fans and jazz fans in general. ~ Stacia Proefrock

Among Stravinsky’s late works, none has achieved the enormous manifold success of Agon. Here it is effectively paired with Schuller's haunting Paul Klee Studies, which features the inventively jazz-inflected "Little Blue Devil."

British Academy Award-winning composer, Jason Graves, has scored one of 2015's biggest video game releases, The Order: 1886, created and developed by Ready At Dawn Studios. In this cinematic experience based on a tense and unique vision of Victorian-Era London, Graves delivers an extraordinary score that brings to life the game's alternate history, inspired by Knights of the Roundtable lore and Lycan mythology. Renowned for his BAFTA-winning score for Dead Space and the acclaimed Tomb Raider reboot, the classically trained American composer employs memorable orchestral writing and unique musical textures in The Order: 1886 to outstanding effect.

Graves masterfully combines cinematic sounds with action-packed cues, empathetic melodies, and powerful passages. Recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, the score for The Order: 1886 deliberately eschews musical cliches, such as heroic French horns and excessive bombast. Instead, the celebrated composer makes use of an impressive choir of 24 men and low, bassy sounds – an elegant, all the more fascinating approach to a title that focuses on blockbuster game play and dramatic character performances.

This unique musical arrangement has a truly spectacular effect: Jason Graves' compositions emanate a warm weight that perfectly conveys the tense, industrial feel that colors the world of The Order: 1886. With its authentic acoustics as well as careful, original tone, Graves' music skillfully immerses players in the epic action of The Order: 1886, one of 2015's most anticipated video games.

Bette Davis was making a triumphant return to Broadway in the 1952 revue Two’s Company … until the show began its previews, when she promptly collapsed onstage on opening night. Davis was perhaps in over her head (song, dance and comedy were not her strong points) in this otherwise charming revue, with a score largely by Vernon Duke (music) and Sammy Cahn and Ogden Nash (lyrics). Two’s Company was one of the last of the sophisticated, satirical revues, a kind of show that television killed off, and its reputation has been held hostage to Davis’s troubled involvement. But Sheldon Harnick, Horton Foote and Peter DeVries were among those contributing material to the show, and the choreographer was no less than Jerome Robbins. Hiram Sherman won a Tony for his expert comedy work in this fascinating relic of Broadway’s past.

Music by VERNON DUKE
Lyrics by OGDEN NASH
Additional Lyrics by SAMMY CAHN
Musical Supervisor and Conductor: MILTON ROSENSTOCK
Production under the supervision of JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON

1. Overture 4:31
2. Theatre Is a Lady - Peter Kelley, Chorus 2:50
3. Turn Me Loose on Broadway - Bette Davis 2:24
4. It Just Occurred to Me - Peter Kelley, Deborah Remsen, Chorus 3:40
5. A Man’s Home Hiram Sherman 3:00 6. Roundabout - Ellen Hanley 3:18
7. Roll Along, Sadie - Bette Davis, Hiram Sherman, Chorus 4:49
8. Out of the Clear Blue Sky - Peter Kelley, Sue Hight 3:10
9. Esther - David Burns 2:28
10. Haunted Hot Spot - Ellen Hanley 2:51
11. Purple Rose - Bette Davis, Hiram Sherman, Chorus 6:00
12. Just Like a Man - Bette Davis 4:37
13. Finale - Bette Davis, Company 1:20

What a band on this 1973 LP: Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter, Harold Mabern, Earl Klugh and some sweet arrangements by the J.B.'s Pee Wee Ellis. Benson and his guitar masterfully mix jazz, soul and R&B as you hear Body Talk; Top of the World; Dance; Plum, and more. Includes an alternate take of the title track!

Extended Voices is an apt title for this album, for the simple reason that all of the works here either extend the human voice physically or enlarge the performance situation of choral music.

In Pauline Oliveros’s jet-propelled Sound Patterns, the conductor deals with precise, difficult rhythmic structures that have many changes of tempo. The singers improvise pitches within broad areas of high, middle and low and are asked to produce a varied assortment of sounds, including whispers, tongue-clicks, lip-pops and finger-snaps. The vocal noises, along with tone clusters produced by the pitch improvisations, create a humorous, electronic effect.

In Robert Ashley’s She Was a Visitor, the performer finds himself in a decidedly different choral situation. The chorus is divided into groups, each headed by a leader. A lone speaker repeats the title sentence throughout the entire performance. The separate phonemes of this sentence are picked up freely by the group leaders and are relayed to the group members, who sustain them softly and for the duration of one natural breath. The time lag between the group leaders’ utterances and their pickup by the group members produces a staggered, chant-like effect, with the sounds moving outward from the nearest performer to the farthest. It is possible that in a concert performance, the audience could, with minimal instruction, also participate.

Christian Wolff in Cambridge by Morton Feldman is a simple, two-part work, consisting of a succession of chords and single notes sung quietly by the chorus. There is no text. The conductor chooses the duration of each sound on the basis of breath control and harmonic weight.

Chorus and Instruments (II), a longer work also by Morton Feldman, has alternating sections of free and strict tempos, plus the additional colors of tuba and chimes.

In Solos for Voice 2 by John Cage, each singer is asked to make their own realization of the piece, using material, including sheets of transparent plastic, supplied by the composer. By superimposing certain sheets on others, the singer determines several aspects of his vocal part, including vowel and consonant sounds, dynamics, approximate pitch areas and time decisions. The electronic version of this work was developed by Gordon Mumma and David Tudor. The singers’ sounds are picked up by several types of throat, lip and cup microphones, are fed into a complex configuration of electronic equipment and are then processed in real time during the performance. In the Ichyanagi work that gives this album its title, singers use musical instruments, such as slide whistles, to extend the range of their voices. At the same time, electronic instruments transform the voices in terms of timbre, range and dynamics. The written score consists mostly of sustained sounds and glissandos of varying lengths and speeds. The development of the material depends upon a cueing arrangement that instructs the singer to perform in relation to sounds he hears another performer make. Extended Voices also includes a prerecorded tape, composed of purely electronically produced sounds, that functions as complementary or accompaniment material.

The vocoder used in North American Time Capsule 1967 by Alvin Lucier was designed by Sylvania Electronics Systems to encode speech sounds into digital information bits for transmission over narrow band widths via telephone lines or radio channels. There is no written score for this work. The performers are asked to prepare material using any sounds at all that would describe to beings far from our environment either in space or in time the physical, spiritual, social, scientific or any other situation in which we currently find ourselves. The performers’ sounds are fed into the vocoder and are modified during the performance both by the sounds acting as control signals and by the manual alteration of the vocoder components.

-- from the liner notes by Alvin Lucier

"There is music that has been created for the musical comedy stage by some of America’s liveliest musical minds. This collection includes what might be called the cream of these writers’ music, presented in full-dress attire supplied by Andre Kostelanetz and his Orchestra." - From the original liner notes.