Honegger / Poulenc / Steffens / Zehn / Gazarov - Blue Rondo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In releasing an album entirely of his own music, Guitarist, Lutenist and composer Lars Hannibal reflected upon an extraordinary - and somewhat unorthodox musical career. While studying classical guitar and lute with the great masters of the art, Hannibal lived a rich double life playing in a variety of bands and creative ensembles in artistic foment of '60s and '70s Counter Cultural Århus. It was during this time that Hannibal began finding his own creative voice, exploring the exciting intersections between Baroque and Classical form, the direct earnest expression of Danish folk music, the ear-pleasing appeal of popular song and the expressive possibilities of modal jazz. Hannibal has also found great joy in arranging music for the different ensembles he's performed with, resulting in hundreds of arrangements for various instrumental combinations with guitar. Finally, as one of the most active musicians in Denmark, Hannibal has been a champion of living composer, including many of Denmark's finest, including Jørgen Jersild, Palle Mikkelborg, Herman D. Koppel, Thomas Koppel and Vagn Holmboe. When assembling this program, it was only natural that Hannibal would draw on both his original works and his arrangements of Danish song. As a special treat, Hannibal, ever the mutli-faceted musician, the Neo-Classic composer, the pop songsmith, the faithful arranger of Danish folk song also takes pride in being Hannibal the Poppa, with his daughters, Agnete and Amalie and his life-long musical companion, his former wife Michala Petri joining him on his musical journey!

Honegger / Poulenc / Satie / Aoki - Melancolie [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/14/2016

Francis Poulenc is not an easy composer to relate to. Not the man himself perhaps- though possibly that too- but his music. It is somehow dated. Here is a composer who produced his best works, all more or less completely tonal, at a time when Arnold Schoenberg was writing twelve-tone music and Poulenc's countrymen Oliver Messiaen and Pierre Boulez were into innovative rhythms, scales and techniques to lift the music out of the realm of subjective emotionalism. This features three concertos by Francis Poulenc. The Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani (1938) is considered to be the most popular and, perhaps, the most serious. The Piano Concerto (1949), a light concerto a wellspring of musical ideas, more or less brutally juxtaposed. The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1932) lies perhaps somewhere between these two.