Eric Salzman - Nude Paper Sermon & Wiretap - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Eric Sol n - Eine Schauspiels / Ungarishe Suite Op 16 [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/22/2013

This is the second of two volumes celebrating InchRoger Reynolds at 85,Inchand marks the first recording of his Piano Etudes, in two Books. Book I was written between 2010 and 2011, Book II in 2016-2017. Reynolds' Etudes allows the performer to not only choose the number of Etudes to be presented (even repeating them, if desired) as well as their order. In this way, the performer becomes a co-creator with the composer. All 12 Etudes are presented in this recording by Eric Huebner. Each etude inhabits a world distinctly it's own. Reynolds dares a remarkable leap from the first to the second book. Rather than merely continue the premises and promises established by the first six etudes, the second six constitute a difference in kind rather than an extension. Their complexity is intensified, their investigations more extreme, even though they make comparable technical demands. The Etudes carry subtle quotations from Reynolds' own, earlier piano works as well as the traditional literature of piano etudes. The lineup Reynolds has chosen includes Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Debussy, and Ligeti. Yet these allusions are not mere homages, and these quotations range from fleeting to obsessive. Reynolds collaborated with Huebner on the 2009 Mode , Epigram and Evolution (mode 212/13), an anthology of Reynolds' piano works to that date. This led the composer to value Huebner's extraordinary capacity to combine virtuoso technique with Zen-like concentration. Their artistic bond inspired Reynolds to contemplate writing his own brand of etudes.

Double Concertos brings together three works by composer and conductor Eric Nathan, each exploring the expressive possibilities of paired solo voices in dialogue with space, memory, and one another. Written between 2019 and 2023, the pieces on this album grew from Nathan's long-standing fascination with how two individuals interact through sound-coming together, diverging, supporting, and remembering. The Double Concertos for violin and clarinet, and for two violas, are shaped by close personal relationships between the soloists, while Just a Moment for two antiphonal oboes reflects on distance and connection, both physical and emotional. Across the album, Nathan sets present-day musical language in conversation with older forms and gestures, drawing on spatial placement, texture, and timbre to create music that is intimate in scale yet expansive in feeling. Themes of mentorship, partnership, love, and loss run quietly through these works, performed here by long-time collaborators and musicians closely connected to the music's origins.