Kristin Fossheim - Sommernatt - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Berit Opheim Versto - Slattar Pa Tunga [SUPER-AUDIO CD] date 11/25/2008

Composers are often tasked with creating from a void, an emptiness. The blank page is an easel. The parts of a structure of a piece of music - melody, accompaniment, line, harmony, tension, and - must take shape to reach the listener's ear. Sometimes, instead of starting with an empty sheet of staff paper, a composer creates something which is pollinated by another source. Perhaps it is a folk song, a poem, a melody, or an even larger work, such as a full-length opera. New works are then realized. In the case of this two-CD set, an East South African folk tune receives new life as a romantic piano ballade. A sonnet of Petrarch resurfaces centuries later as a dramatic declaration of love, through a solo piano work. The repertoire on these discs traces Kristin Ditlow's own growth as a pianist and musician. Each work marks a chapter of her development and artistry to the present. The song transcriptions are pieces that have been played countless times with vocal partners the operatic works are works that she has coached or conducted. Her passionate pursuit of travel is also a thread which weaves throughout the discs the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor spiritual arrangements are works that she became acquainted with as a high school choral accompanist meeting her husband while on tour in China in 2012 the Mongolian Shepherd Song is her arrangement of a traditional folksong from the Chinese Mongolian community, a work introduced to her by her husband in China originally for erhu and pipa (traditional Chinese instruments) accompaniment but transcribed for violin and piano. Kristin Ditlow has spent five summers performing, teaching, and coaching in Hungary and the Bartók selections all harken back to those times in the Hungarian countryside. Pianist, coach and conductor Dr. Kristin Ditlow dedicates her musical career to collaboration and connection. She has been seen in concer

Caroline Ridderstolpe's music remained virtually unknown for almost 200 years, until Anna Paradiso rediscovered it as part of her research into nineteenth-century Swedish salon music. Born in Berlin, Ridderstolpe received an extensive musical education that included singing, instrument-playing and composition. After her marriage to a member of the Swedish aristocracy, she settled in Sweden, participated in the salons held at the royal court and socialised with some of the finest musicians, writers and painters of her time. Ridderstolpe mainly composed songs and pieces for solo piano that belong to the genre of salon music which, far from being mediocre as is sometimes claimed, actually allows greater intimacy with the listeners. Ridderstolpe's songs are often based on poems by Swedish writers and represent a perfect union of text and music. According to Anna Paradiso, Caroline Ridderstolpe's music has a kind of sadness and depth that could be described as 'modern', reminiscent of the lieder of Beethoven, Schubert and the Schumanns. In keeping with the soundscape of Ridderstolpe's era, the music is performed here by Anna Paradiso on an original square piano whose particularity and charm lie not in the evenness of all the notes as one might expect from a modern instrument, but rather in the independent beauty of each string. This instrument is combined with the expressive voice of the eminent mezzo-soprano Kristina Hammarstrom. By giving once more a voice to Caroline Ridderstolpe's music, the performers wish to cast new light on women's power over their own creativity and therefore over their own lives.