Feico Deutekom - Glass: Musical Offering - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Goran Krivokapic - Guitar Recital [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/18/2005

Dutch pianist Feico Deutekom offer a new perspective on Glass's piano Etudes, one of the landmark bodies of work in the 21st Century. The most common approach for pianists is to simple record Glass's twenty Etudes in straight order. However, Deutekom, one of the preeminent Glass specialists on the scene today, takes a much more personal approach. He performs and records the Etudes in a sequence which tells a very different story from Glass's own order. In fact, there's a historical case to be made for re-sequencing Glass's Etudes as the composer did himself when he renumbered 1-6 after the premieres. The result is a time-traveling musical adventure with a different dramatic arc from the familiar sequence.

Navona Records presents some of the finest American voices of modern serious music on THROUGH GLASS, a brand-new compilation of recently-created works for piano - both solo and in chamber setups. Ovidiu Marinescu's Rorrim for cello and piano makes the start. Loosely based on a motif by Johann Sebastian Bach, it could be called a concept piece it's title, InchmirrorInch spelled backwards, is reflective of the mirrorings and variations of Bach's fragment therein. Bruce Babcock continues on a similar note with his riskily-titled Alternative Facts, a piece for solo piano characterized by a deceptively simple, mechanical main rhythm repeated in complex harmonies. As announced in the title, a deliberate systematic confusion prevails, and with astonishing accuracy. I'lana Cotton's ambitious The Return for piano, violin, and cello bridges the gap between Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu and French avant garde composer Olivier Messiaen - and that gap is smaller than one might think. At 13.5 minutes, the work impressively centers around a beautiful dark mode and the melodic variations it generates. Alla Cohen's Three Film Noir Pieces were intended to be heard along two movies, Cat People and The Curse of the Cat People, both films from the WWII-era. Cohen's solo piano works reflect the composer's celebrated sophisticated style, and perfectly transport the eerie atmosphere of the films into music. Curt Cacioppo's Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano derives it's material entirely from solfège spellings of the names of the three players. The three-movement work cycles through a wide range of emotions, from whimsy to unhinged rage, and concludes with a quasi-tango with a political message. Peter Deutsch's fugue de Profundis Clamavi (roughly, Inchfrom the depths I have cried [to you, Lord]Inch) is a calm reflection on the human longing that creates but also transcends religion. Insp