Charles Owen - Piano Works - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Several Times is an impressive collection spanning over four decades of the composer's career. Though artistic development is present throughout the larger timeline of the album, each composition demonstrates innovative approaches to time and repetition. These innovations reflect a desire to not only learn and understand time, but master it. String Quartet No. 1 and String Quartet No. 2 may have been composed 20 years apart from each other, but Dr. Kam's approach to each composition shares a nucleus repetition. The differences are subtle at first. The former employs a non-tonal, modernist arrangement reminiscent of 1960s post-Webern music, while the latter focuses more on pitch centricities and implied tonal relations. Dr. Kam's cyclical patterns generate a sound distinctly his own. Similarly, Sonata No. 1 and Sonata No. 2 share a unique approach to time while retaining their identities in pitch orientation. At only eight years apart, the two sonatas sound closely related, yet each carries a unique motion that draws one into the breathtaking piano performance. The arresting compositions compel listeners to work out the intricacies of time and repetition - if they can. As timeless as Dr. Kam's compositions are to himself, so too are they to listeners. Whether you consider String Quartet No. 1 from the mid-60s to D-Bop Sonata No. 2, the compositions characterize the unique style of Dr. Kam from his past to present, and hint at what is to come in the future.

This unique collection of blues songs will be embraced by fans of blues and roots music. Difficult times call for powerful songs, and this collection has plenty of them. RICH MAN'S WAR is a compilation of peace and protest songs that cry out for change, and will go down in history as the only multi-artist collection in existence of 21st century protest songs that exclusively feature blues artists.

Leos Janacek - Piano Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/24/2003