Henri Lazarof - Symphony 4 & 5 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Like hardly any other personality in music history, Harry Partch has freed himself from the constraints of musical conventions. He has not only left the beaten paths of the conservatories, but has also developed his own microtonal sound system, which he has captured in spectacularly beautiful, archaically wild yet angularly modern instruments that are indispensable for a live performance. Since 2013, Ensemble Musikfabrik has been the only ensemble in possession of a full set of replica Partch instruments. These are not used solely for the performance of Partch's own music, however; through numerous commissions in the context of their project Inchpitch 43_tuning the cosmosInch, they have inspired composers from all over the world to immerse themselves in these fantastical musical sculptures and their world of microtonal sounds. This album presents three outstanding examples of the many and varied ways in which the Cologne-based ensemble has taken up Partch's legacy Sampo Haapamäki's InchHeritageInch, InchWooden CloudsInch by Martin Smolka andInch Voices for Harry PartchInch by Carola Bauckholt.

Diamond composed his Symphony No. 2 in 1942-43, a period of anxiety for the composer as an American whose country was at war and as an artist in lacking a solid financial underpinning. Encouraged by conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, Diamond sent the score to the Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky, renowned for his ongoing support of contemporary music. After a read-through of the symphony, that is to say, not a public performance, the Boston musicians responded with an outpouring of spontaneous applause. The actual première concert performance followed on 22nd October, 1944. In the final year of the war, 1945, Diamond composed Symphonies 3 and 4. Once again, the Boston Symphony music director proved his mettle by persuading the Koussevitzky Foundation to commission the Fourth Symphony. Diamond graciously dedicated the new work to the conductor's late wife, Natalie Koussevitzky. The première took place 23rd January, 1948 with the Boston Symphony, but under Leonard Bernstein, who replaced an indisposed Koussevitzky.

In the early 19th century, while Haydn and Mozart remained revered, many of their once admired contemporaries quickly fell into oblivion and with them much delightful, finely crafted music. In a recital centered on songs of parting, Carolyn Sampson and Kristian Bezuidenhout seek to make some amends to this. They open with August Bernhard Valentin Herbing's Montan und Lalage, a miniature opera for one singer, with the keyboard-as-orchestra providing the scenery and stage action. Giving Bezuidenhout's fortepiano the recognition it deserves, the program also includes no less than two songs dedicated to the instrument, by composers we rarely hear of today Friedrich Gottlob Fleischer and Christian Michael Wolff. But even though Mozart and Haydn are still household names, it isn't on account of their solo songs, which makes the performers' decision to also throw light on their less familiar work a welcome one. The program features four songs each by them, including Mozart's Lied der Trennung (Song of Parting), which has lent it's name to the entire program, as well as Haydn's Arianna a Naxos, a dramatic cantata in which the Cretan princess Ariadne expresses her love of the Greek hero Theseus... and her agony when he sails off, leaving her alone on the island of Naxos.