Psathas / Curry / Moriarty - Music from New Zealand for 2 Guitars - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Originally released in 1983, this record is approaching platinum status. Includes the tracks InchA World of FantasyInch and InchNever SurrenderInch Album Tracks 1. Too Much Thinking 2. A World of Fantasy 3. A Minor Prelude 4. All the Way 5. Battle Cry 6. Overture (Procession) 7. Never Surrender 8. When the Lights Go Down 9. Writing on the Wall 10. Epilogue (Resolution)

Classical guitar music has flourished in New Zealand in recent years, and Bruce Paine, among the country's leading composers for the instrument, is one of the most imaginative and original. This album charts the course of his writing from one of his earliest pieces, the poetic, witty tone poem Sea Suite, to the recent and substantial Waitemata Reverie. Drawing on an impressionistic palette Paine conjures up chime arpeggios as well as the natural world in Oakura Chimes. The four settings of Maori folk songs were arranged expressly for this album. Album Tracks 1. Sea Suite~Sea Life 2. Sea Suite~The Whale and the Octopus 3. Sea Suite~Dance of the Walrus 4. Sea Suite~Shark Dream and Reprise 5. Waitemata Reverie 6. Four Maori Folk Songs~Hine e Hine 7. Four Maori Folk Songs~Tama Ngakau Marie Invention 8. Four Maori Folk Songs~Tarakihi Invention 9. Four Maori Folk Songs~Improvisation on Pokarekare Ana 10. Oakura Chimes 11. Seringapatam

Janácek's final decade saw an almost unprecedented creative renewal during which he wrote some of his greatest works. Among them were his chamber music masterpieces, the two String Quartets. The first was inspired by Tolstoy's novella The Kreutzer Sonata, a torrid tale of adultery and murder to which Janácek responded with music of increasingly frenzied passion. The second was subtitled Intimate Letters, a freely evolving work full of yearning and amorous defiance. Originally cast for four violins, the two youthful Sonnets date from 1875 and balance the archaisms of the first with the lyricism of the second. Album Tracks 1. String Quartet No. 1, JW Vii/8 'Kreutzer Sonata' (1923) 2. String Quartet No. 2, JW Vii/13 'Listy Duverné' ('Intimate Letters') (1928) 3. Znelka ('Sonnet') in D minor, JW Vii/2 (1875) 4. Znelka ('Sonnet') in a Major, JW Vii/1 (1875)