Contains:
"Waiting"
- taken from the Isadar solo piano collections, "Active Imagination / Reconstructed" (also available on SMP)

Sounds like: Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Vince Guaraldi, Liz Story, George Winston, early Windham Hill solo piano artists

Transcribed by: David Shenton ( https://www.shentonmusic.com/ ) verbatim to the sound recording

Note: A slightly different version of this composition is also heard on the Isadar album, "Reconstructed" (Produced by Will Ackerman)

Album & Songbook Review by: Kathy Parsons

I love this CD! It constantly amazes me how many outstanding composer/pianists there are out there - especially in relation to the few who are highly (commercially) successful within this broad genre. I would say that Active Imagination definitely belongs near the top of the heap. Isadar?s style is original, and his pianism is excellent. He lists his inspirations as Liz Story, Keith Jarrett, and Bill Evans, and I can hear traces of all three in his playing, but find his composing and playing styles to be uniquely his own.

The first three tracks are lively and upbeat (?Active Imagination?, ?Throwing the Dice?, and ?Where the Wild Things Are?) with an easy, jazzy, improvised feel. The meter changes are fascinating, and the bluesy beat on ?Wild Things? is infectious.

From there, the mood seems to gradually darken and become more introspective. ?Waiting? is a beautiful, flowing mood piece full of questions and a lovely melody line. Isadar?s cover of Liz Story?s ?Wedding Rain? is wonderful - this is a piece I often work on with my advanced students, and everything about Isadar?s interpretation of the piece seems right without being a carbon-copy of Liz?s recording.

?Feu Follet (the ?spook? light?)? has a nice, easy flow with a strong sense of mystery; it also has an unusual rhythm that lightens the mood and adds a bounce. ?Uncertainty? is cooler and more aloof, but gorgeous in its flowing introspection - that it ends with a major chord, feels like the soul-searching has had positive results. ?Love Chaconne? is the closing track, and is the longest and most abstract piece on the CD. The left hand plays a repeated pattern while the right hand goes off in several different directions (one of the primary characteristics of a ?chaconne?). Beautiful in its simplicity, this is the only track that seems to contain an element of pain and sorrow, but never dissolves into melodrama.

Active Imagination is excellent from start to finish and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes solo piano with substance and complexity, but is still accessible, melodic, and rhythmic. Bravo amundo!

Active Imagination Sheet Music Collection is the companion songbook to Isadar?s 1999 CD release, Active Imagination. The CD was one of my favorites for the year when I reviewed it for the print version of ?Wind and Wire? magazine, so I was really looking forward to the sheet music! Transcribed note-for-note by David Shenton of ShentonMusic.com (I proofed about half of the book, so I can attest to how accurate it is!), it is up to you to make the music sound as close to the CD as you want or to interpret the music and make your own statements with it.

One thing that really stands out about this collection is how much FUN it is to play. The rhythms are interesting and catchy, and the mood in several of the songs is playful and upbeat. This is especially true with the title song, ?Throwing the Dice,? ?Where the Wild Things Are,? and ?Feu Follet (the ?spook? light).? ?Waiting,? ?Love Chaconne,? and ?Uncertainty? are slower, more introspective, and a bit moody, making this a sheet music collection that contains a variety of moods and styles. The only piece missing from the book is Liz Story?s ?Wedding Rain,? but the sheet music for that song is available in some of Ms. Story?s own collections.

Early-advanced players should have no trouble with this music. The timing on some of the songs is a little bit tricky, but if you count it as you are learning it, it will fall into place.

If you haven?t heard the CD, check it out, too! This book is available here from SMP, isadar.com and amazon.com. Highly recommended!

Isadar is an artist on both Enlightened Piano Radio & Whisperings Solo Piano Radio, the latter featuring some of today's biggest names in solo piano music, including Ludovico Einaudi, David Nevue, Brian Crain, Kevin Kern, Robin Spielberg, Michele McLaughlin, Philip Wesley and over 300 more...

Also available as sheet music in physical songbooks, digital downloads, as well as software for Yamaha Disklavier player-pianos.

For more information, visit his website at: http://www.isadar.com

Contains Le Roi Lear: Pr�lude,Premi�re Fanfare, and La Mort de Cord�lia,Toomai des �l�phants, Rodrigue et Chim�ne: Pr�lude � l?acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint S�bastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pell�as et M�lisande in 1893?1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes in 1912?13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orph�e-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902?03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908?17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912?13; or Le Martyre de Saint S�bastien and La Bo�te � joujoux by his ?angel of corrections? [?l?ange des Corrections?] Andr� Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy?s ?compulsive achievement? could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure?s 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to ?write a ballet for him that he would sign? on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andr� Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy?s lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts?then orchestrating them in Debussy?s style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.