disc. The opener, Melodien, bubbles magically into earshot like the start of a dream. Wispy abstract figures float through the score with visionary logic. Two unison...
disc. The opener, Melodien, bubbles magically into earshot like the start of a dream. Wispy abstract figures float through the score with visionary logic. Two unison...
disc. The opener, Melodien, bubbles magically into earshot like the start of a dream. Wispy abstract figures float through the score with visionary logic. Two unisons at either end support the thin fabric like tent-poles. The four-movement Chamber Concerto for 13 instruments emerges from the mist. Sul ponticello strings flash like loose metal in a tin tank. The Movimento preciso e meccanico chugs amusingly like a rusty conveyor belt. The instruments, muted and staccato, play pulsing games with the stereo speakers. The Piano Concerto is real madhouse music. Pierre-Laurent Aimard holds no prominent piano part but is rather the integrated spokesman of a cackling, surrounding orchestra. Melodic motifs dominate the background like repeated heckles, and what sound like welt-inducing lash strokes stimulate the Allegro risoluto. The self-assured ramblings in the Presto luminoso challenge the listener to extract sense from it. Finally, Mysteries of the Macabre for Peter Masseurs' clean, solo trumpet and orchestra is a wacky excursion into the world of Ligeti's 30-year-old opera Le Grand Macabre. Humour is the appropriate device to dispel the seriousness of contemporary ideas. The ear is not even supposed to take this calculated chaos at face value. It is a step towards enlightenment. --Rick Jones
disc. The opener, Melodien, bubbles magically into earshot like the start of a dream. Wispy abstract figures float through the score with visionary logic. Two unisons at either end support the thin fabric like tent-poles. The four-movement Chamber Concerto for 13 instruments emerges from the mist. Sul ponticello strings flash like loose metal in a tin tank. The Movimento preciso e meccanico chugs amusingly like a rusty conveyor belt. The instruments, muted and staccato, play pulsing games with the stereo speakers. The Piano Concerto is real madhouse music. Pierre-Laurent Aimard holds no prominent piano part but is rather the integrated spokesman of a cackling, surrounding orchestra. Melodic motifs dominate the background like repeated heckles, and what sound like welt-inducing lash strokes stimulate the Allegro risoluto. The self-assured ramblings in the Presto luminoso challenge the listener to extract sense from it. Finally, Mysteries of the Macabre for Peter Masseurs' clean, solo trumpet and orchestra is a wacky excursion into the world of Ligeti's 30-year-old opera Le Grand Macabre. Humour is the appropriate device to dispel the seriousness of contemporary ideas. The ear is not even supposed to take this calculated chaos at face value. It is a step towards enlightenment. --Rick Jones
Advantages: MacGregor's chameleon-like arrangements render every piece interesting, appealing. Disadvantages: She remains in obscurity in the US.
...! A wonderful, very highly recommended disc.
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*A tabla is a tunable, two-drum North Indian percussion instrument consisting of a right-hand cone-shaped drum and a left-hand kettle drum.
Link to andante.com for the Batt-Cage story (not sure if you need to be a member of andante to access the page, though):
http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=17428&highlight=1&highlightterms=john|cage&lstKeywords=
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Track Listing:
42nd St. Stomp / Alasdair Nicolson
Libertango / Astor Piazzolla
Hughe Ashton's Ground / William Byrd
Automne a Varsovie / Gyorgy Ligeti
Incarnation II / Somei Satoh
Endgame / Talvin Singh
Strumming / Moses Taiwa Molelekwa/MacGregor
Player Piano Study No. 11 / Conlon Nancarrow
Even Tenor / Howard Skempton
Forlorn Hope Fancy / John Dowland
Sonata No. 5 (from Sonatas and Interludes 1946-48) / John Cage...
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Advantages: Two outstanding peices of chamber music for an unusual combination of instruments Disadvantages: On the surface quite contrasting works, listener must be openminded
...The work of Ligeti has been at the forefront of Western avant-garde since his escape from the oppressive communist regime of Hungary in 1956, and he is widely appreciated as one of the most outstanding contemporary composers. The Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano because it was born out of a three-year period of illness and writer's block after the completion of Le Grand Macabre in which time he laboured over a piano concerto but completed only two short harpsichord pieces (Continuum and Hungarian Rock), yet the result in 1982 was the Trio, one of the finest and most complex pieces written so far. His career up to this point had included such sucesses as his Requiem, Atmosphères and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001. Tiring of his own cluster-textural techniques and the avant-garde, Ligeti refreshed his compositional...
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Advantages: The score material is as stunning as ever and is worthy listening Disadvantages: Fly Me to the Moon again and again and again and...
..." from the first volume, only highlighting the electric guitars rather than the orchestra, it is a nice enough version though not nearly as good as the original. But apart from these two cues, there is absolutely no other action material to be found on the entire album.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MUSIC: Unearthly Eeriness
The psychological tracks consist just about half of the score material on this album, beginning with "In the Depths of Human Hearts" that features little twinkling bells, piano, and meandering cellos with a few bangs of a drum, all bringing to mind György Ligeti and Steve Reich. "Do You Love Me?" is a very interesting choral track that has a very statically fluctuating melodic line to which an electronic chorus is imposed over, making the overall soundworld truly unearthly and very interesting. "Splitting of the Breast" and "Mother...
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helpful 25.12.2005
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