Kenn Harris - Amadeo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

(SACD-HYBRID)(This CD is an SACD, a which utilizes a new digital technology called Direct Stream Digital (DSD), which greatly simplifies the audio encoding/decoding process, resulting in a high resolution playback) a brilliant live recording from the Concord vaults, this is another of Gene Harris's superb efforts for the tag, and this particular session features the additional talents of the awesome Stanley Turrentine who is also in magnificent form here, joined by bassist extraordinaire Ray Brown. With outstanding performances of InchMisty,Inch InchBattle Hymn of the RepbulicInch and the swinging bluesy InchGene's LamentInch amongst others, this is one for the ages.

The origins of the cello as a solo instrument, and of the kind of solo repertoire compiled in the present set, lie in the gradual emancipation of the cello from it's function as a primarily supportive, accompanying bass. This process began in the second half of the 17th century, firstly in Naples, and then farther afield across the Italian provinces and principalities. Yet the cello would remain an unequal peer of the violin, expressively aswell as technically, through the course of the 18th century, with low-string virtuosity centred instead on the increasingly obsolete viola da gamba (Marin Marais in Paris and then Carl Friedrich Abel in London). By the time of the 'Ottocento' (19th century), opera was the dominant force in Italian musical culture, with bel canto composers such as Rossini and Donizetti creating a public appetite for opera that eclipsed achievements by Italy's musical sons in other genres. Some of these composers who focused their energies instead on instrumental music, swimming against the operatic tide, remained in their native land, while others found a home (or were forced to find one) abroad. Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) is one who stayed. A gifted pianist, he bypassed the operatic path and wrote music with a kind of fluent synthesis of Italian lyricism and German, dialectic approach to form that reached an early peak in his Cello Sonata of 1880. Yet Martucci, as a teacher of composition in Bologna and then Naples, urged the teenaged Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) to study abroad. Casella's father was a cellist and his mother a pianist. Several other close relatives were cellists, and his godfather was Alfredo Piatti. It makes sense therefore that, returning from his studies in Paris with Gabriel Faure, he would unite cello and piano with a thorough grasp of their contrasting idioms. Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) is among the few composers in th

We the Dreamers - We All Need Time [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/04/2017