Mikko Innanen - F60.8 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

On October 4th Erased Tapes present Handfuls of Night ' the highly anticipated follow-up to Penguin Cafe's much applauded 2017 album The Imperfect Sea 'inspired by the Antarctic, Arthur Jeffes' journey following in Scott's footsteps and our penguin friends that reside there. Using gut-stringed violins, viola, cello, bass, percussion, upright and grand pianos, synthesiser, harmonium and more, Arthur Jeffes and his cohorts have crafted a vivid series of panoramic sonic landscapes, that are as rich in cerebral poignancy as they are in emotional depth. Bookended by the atmospheric ambient piano pieces 'Winter Sun' and 'Midnight Sun', the album traverses glacial minimalism with ease, combining their signature contemporary classical panoramas, such as the melancholic yet upbeat lead track 'At the Top of the Hill, They Stood...' and the colossal cinematic piece 'Chapter', with the crystalline folktronica on 'Pythagorus on the Line Again a re-visiting and continuation of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's 1993 Union Cafe song on the principles of harmonics. Handfuls of Night began life after Greenpeace commissioned Jeffes to write four pieces of music corresponding to four breeds of penguins, to help raise awareness for the endangered Antarctic seas. A fundraising evening at Earth in Hackney followed, where Penguin Cafe premiered the four songs named after their feathered counterparts to a sold out audience; the rousing contemporary folk inflected 'Chinstrap', the mournful and minimalistic 'Adelie', stoic and rhythmic 'The Life of an Emperor' and the wistful, string-laden 'Gentoo Origin'. Album Tracks 1. Winter Sun 2. Chinstrap 3. Chapter 4. Adelie 5. At the Top of the Hill, They Stood 6. Pythagoras on the Line Again 7. The Life of An Emperor 8. Gentoo Origin 9. Midnight Sun

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was widely known for his passionate, incomparable improvisations on the clavichord, most characteristically in the form of free fantasia. His compositions were unique in style, full of contrasts, and universally admired by several generations; the Vienna Classicists, even Beethoven and Schubert, considered him their musical father. Declamatory, improvisatory style is of course the epitaph of all 18th-century music - exemplified in Johann Sebastian Bach's Chromatic Fantasia BWV903, with it's central recitative and broken chords audaciously passing through distant harmonies. Johann Nikolaus Forkel, author of the first Bach biography and part of C.P.E. Bach's literary circles, transmitted a refined version in his manuscript (P 212) and subsequent edition that may derive from a revised original version once in possession of the Bach sons. C.P.E. Bach's Fantasia in C minor (published in 1753) bears distinct similarities to his father's Fantasia chromatica, and it has been suggested that it may in fact have been a tombeau to the elder Bach. The deep personal nature and connection between the two works is explicit. For Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and the 'Bachists', the most expressive and intimate compositions were reserved for the clavichord. It was in the clavichord that one might 'find the soundboard of your heart.... Have no regrets when alone under the moonlight you improvise, or refresh your soul on a summer night, or when you celebrate a spring evening; ah! Then pine not for the strident harpsichord. See, your clavichord breathes as gently as your heart.' (Ch.F.D. Schubart Musikalische Rhapsodien III, 1786) Charles Burney, who visited C.P.E. Bach in Hamburg in 1772, described the composer improvising at his legendary clavichord, built by Gottfried Silbermann 'He grew so animated and possessed that he not only played but looked like one inspi

A stranger reveals the opulence of the Royal Chapel of Louis XV Charles-Hubert Gervais was Chapel Master from 1723 onwards, thus offering a perfect representation of the splendor of sacred music at the Court of Versailles. Heir to the great frescoes of Lully and Lalande, Gervais was above all an opera composer, and his dramatic style lends his Grands Motets a decidedly Italian resonance. With this protégé of the Regent Philippe of Orléans - he remained his favored musician for two decades - the evocative power and pomp of Versailles are given added shine by the galant style. Served like a king by magnificent performers, here is Gervais bathed in the glory of Versailles! Album Tracks 1. Super Flumina Babilonis 2. Jubilate Deo 3. Miserere