Jeremiah Zymerman - In Memory of the Labyrinth System - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Marc Coppey and the Zagreb Soloists bring us this enchanting album of cello concertos by Haydn and CPE Bach. Coppey calls the works Inchprecise, commanding, free.Inch The Haydn cello concertos represent some of the highest ranked classical repertoire. They stand in a somewhat privileged existence, since his classical cohorts, Mozart and Beethoven, did not leave us any cello concertos. The CPE Bach concerto gives us a beautiful example of what cello concertos looked like between the Baroque and Classical periods, and is an excellent addition to this album Marc Coppey is a French cellist who won the Bach Competition Leipzig at only age 18. He is thought of as one of today's leading cellists.

Sir John Tavener describes the Lament for Jerusalem as a mystical love song. The Lament brings together Christian, Judaic, and Islamic texts and is sung in Greek and English. The musical structure is that of a lattice whose proportions are carefully designed so that the listener is invited to focus on key points of the text which are themselves supported by transcendental melodic, harmonic, and textural devices. The simplicity of the work's form and it's logical progression through a series of seven linked, self-referential tableaux allow the Lament to grow in power and beauty during it's course. The American composer Steve Reich has described some of his own music as purveying 'a kind of dynamic stasis' and that aptly sums up the effect of Tavener's Lament for Jerusalem. The Lament is rooted in grim tradition, yet it looks longingly into the future to a time when beatific vision is restored, and, as in much of the very greatest art, form and content are inseparable.

Jeremy Summerly - Lamentations [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/15/1994