Dean / Francesconi / Hardenberger - Hakan Hardenberger Plays Dean & Francesconi - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Vinyl LP pressing with that includes three bonus songs (download only). When it came time to make Ad Infinitum, the fourth Telekinesis album, drummer/songwriter/principal architect Michael Lerner found himself in a predicament. In just under five years, he had released three fantastic records-Telekinesis! (2009), 12 Desperate Straight Lines (2011), and Dormarion (2013)-each more ambitious than the last. He had toured all over the world, shared stages with great bands, and enthralled fans of his infectious, ebullient power pop. Newly married and happily ensconced in the home studio he'd assembled in his West Seattle basement, Lerner found himself asking the question that has haunted modestly successful bands down the ages What do you do after the rock and roll dreams you had when you were 19 have come true? InchI went down to the basement,Inch Lerner recalls, Inchand started playing the same chords I always play... I just felt like I'd exhausted everything I knew. I was not excited at all. I just could not make another power-pop album.Inch While many artists have made fruitful use of vintage sounds and production techniques in recent years, Ad Infinitum is a different animal. It feels less like a time capsule and more like a time machine. In the movie version of the story, Lerner would stumble on his way down the stairs, hit his head, and wake up in 1983, and the only way he could get back to the present day would be to make a record using available instruments. Then he'd wake in 2015 to discover he'd been in his basement studio all along. And the record he'd made in that strange dream state would turn out to be Ad Infinitum, the most ambitious and assured Telekinesis to date.

Tchaikovsky's final symphony, known as the InchPathétiqueInch, is a work of haunting beauty and emotional depth-a journey from darkness to fragile light. From it's doom-laden opening to the desperate, fading sorrow of it's final notes, this is music that doesn't just tell a story, it feels one. Tchaikovsky never revealed the symphony's hidden narrative, but with it he created new, intensely personal possibilities for the musical form. With Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda leading the London Symphony Orchestra, this recording captures the full force of Tchaikovsky's vision. Noseda's deep connection to the Russian musical tradition brings out the symphony's vivid colors, sweeping melodies, and aching vulnerability. The album then journeys further into the heart of Russian history with Mussorgsky's Prelude to Khovanshchina, an atmospheric piece that evokes the break of dawn over the Moscow River, as the city slowly stirs to life.

Hakan Hardenberger and Roland Pontinen have enjoyed a fruitful artistic relationship for over forty years. They have played, toured and recorded together and have devoted much time and energy to repertoire ideas. 'For us to create a new programme is an exciting, stimulating and fun process', says Pontinen. 'A process that often mirrors our mutual interest in jazz, film and other art forms. The idea of juxtaposing works of contrasting characters, or composed centuries apart, can often shed new light on the music itself.'We are treated here to recently composed works, arrangements, favourites of both musicians and standards from the Great American Songbook. The centrepiece of the programme is Three Autumns by Staffan Storm, atmospherically connected to Anna Akhmatova's poetry, a reflection on elegiac autumn moods. Among contemporary composers, Mark-Anthony Turnage and HK Gruber, who have provided Hardenberger with more works than any other composers, are also represented. Roland Pontinencontributes two pieces, one of them a meditative workinspired by the simplicity and mood of ThomasNewman's masterful film scores. Legende by George Enescu reflects the impressionistic style of the composer's teachers.The recital is also interspersed with shorter pieces, arrangements and reinterpretations of classic American songs, and includes legendary jazzman Ornette Coleman's Chanting, a favourite encore in Hardenberger/Pontinen programmes - always improvised, every time different.