Internationally renowned minimalist Philip Glass composed this Piano concerto in...(+)
Internationally renowned minimalist Philip Glass composed this Piano concerto in the traditional three-movement form. The first movement titled ‘The Vision’ is classic Glass with a steamroller quality that suggests the immensedrive and ambition the two explorers needed to draw on for their journey into the wilderness. At the beginning of the second movement the theme in the solo Indian Flute musically represents the name ‘Sacajawea’ the ShoshoneIndian mother and guide who assisted the explorers on their way for whom the movement is named.The final movement entitled ‘The Land’ is an exploration of expansiveness both of the land that was being explored but also of thegeologically expanded time over which the landscape has evolved and the great changes that followed Lewis and Clark’s journey.This concerto is designated as part of The Concerto Project recording series started by Glass in theyear 2000 currently in four volumes and including eight concerti.American composer Philip Glass is widely known as one of the most celebrated influential and prolific of the modern composers. He is frequently referred to as aminimalist though he prefers to call himself a composer of ‘music with repetitive structures.’ His operas among them the renowned Einstein On The Beach are performed across the globe and he has created work for small andlarge ensembles film and experimental theatre and founded his own performing group The Philip Glass Ensemble.
Hans Abrahamsen's Concerto For Piano And Orchestra was composed in 1999 by comm...(+)
Hans Abrahamsen's Concerto For Piano And Orchestra was composed in 1999 by commission for the BIT-20 Ensemble. A complex and multi-layered work opening with highly minimal material and very slowly building to an ecstatic frenzy across the four movements. As the piece progresses Abrahamsen has also included some significant nods towards composers Gyorgy Ligeti (a former teacher of the composer) and Gustav Mahler.The work was premiered at the Ultima Festival in Oslo in 2000 with Anne Marie Abildskov as soloist. I Allegro Volante e nervoso II Adagio innocente e semplice III Tempo de grandegioia IV Fluente ma tranquillo Programmenote: ???The piano concerto starts entirely as I usually start with this filigree in the piano and many simultaneous layers ??? Hans Abrahamsen has explained ???The beginning is music that could continue almost minimalistically ad infinitum. But it doesn???t. Instead it has a seizure after just thirty seconds. It literally comes to a halt!???There is no programmatic structure behind the four-movement course of the concerto but a romantically minded listener may be tempted to interpret the development from a quick stalling of the familiar through the introduction (by the lyrical second movement) of something much more ???innocent and simple??? as it says - something feminine one feels like adding - to the third movement???s flashing firework display of a scherzo which draws the curtain aside for a liberating rush of joy as life after the advent of love. However the undersigned assumes full responsibility for this interpretation.The piano soloist is the undisputed main character in the concerto and plays almost constantly in the first three movements. It is only in the fourth movement that she takes a break and listens. ???The piano stirs up an anthill??? is Hans Abrahamsen???s own description ???and it becomes almost operatic! It is as if the music is about to fall right out over the edge of the abyss at the drastic general
g-moll Op. 33 B. 63-Composed in 1876 Dvorák’s only piano concerto has be...(+)
g-moll Op. 33 B. 63-Composed in 1876 Dvorák’s only piano concerto has been overshadowed by his other two concertos for violin and violoncello respectively. Performers and editors have often attempted to upgrade this pianistically unassuming work by adding stylisations of their own. Our Urtext edition revaluates the sources frees the work from subsequent interventions and presents it to full advantage in its authentic form. The principal source of our new edition is the first complete print issued by the publisher Hainauer in 1883 which has been meticulously collated with the autograph. The anonymous original piano reduction is so full of mistakes that editor Robbert vanSteijn decided instead to present the version by Karel Šolc. - New Urtext edition of Dvorák’s only piano concerto - Foreword by Dvorák scholar David R. Beveridge (Eng/Cz/Ger) - Commentary on performance practice by Czech pianist Ivo Kahánek (Eng/Cz/Ger) - Piano reduction by Karel Šolc adapted to fit this new edition - Full score (BA10420) and two-piano reduction (BA10420-90) available for sale - Performance material (BA10420-72) available for hire
Score and Sound Masterworks are convenient, compact and inexpensive score/CD pac...(+)
Score and Sound Masterworks are convenient, compact and inexpensive score/CD packs perfect for classical music enthusiasts and students. Follow along with the score as you listen to some of the world's great music. Discover which instruments are playing and in what combination, and admire the orchestration of a master composer.
Publications in this series include an interesting article about the composition and history of the featured piece, a helpful reference addressing transposing instruments, and a glossary of musical terms used in the score.
Serge Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 is the quintessential romantic work of its type, serving up a host of memorable tunes balanced with plenty of spectacular pianism, making it one of the most popular piano concertos in the modern repertory. Unsmiling, stoic and barely moving at the keyboard, Rachmaninoff became known for his puritanically straightforward approach as a pianist, and for his beauty and warmth of tone. He wrote for his own legendarily enormous hands, which could span an interval of a thirteenth. His superior technical prowess made easy work of treacherous passagework, and consequently his own concertos present considerable challenges to pianists.
