Schleiermacher / Heisig - Sound & Colour - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The composing career of Simon Bainbridge (born in London in 1952) is spanned by the four chamber works in this album, all of them cast as single narrative spans. The First String Quartet, written when it's composer was not yet twenty, blends lyricism and pointillism, rather as if it were recasting abstract poetry in sound; and the recent Second offers a kaleidoscopic tableau of color and nervous energy inspired by visual art. In his Cheltenham Fragments, as the title suggests, Bainbridge uses mosaic technique to build up textures and thematic outlines. And the long lines of the virtuosic Clarinet Quintet generate fleetfooted whirlwinds as they unfold. Linda Merrick and the Kreutzer Quartet worked closely with the composer on the preparation of these recordings.

Casella / Schleiermacher - Futurism & Early Italian Avantgarde [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/22/2019

The program of Vol. 3 of the Hanns Eisler project by Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiemacher- a meritorious endeavor that has already earned them various prizes- features songs from this composer's American exile. The Hollywood Songbook is a major work, even if measured solely by it's length and total of thirty-two pieces. Moreover, the concentration and intensification of the content attained by Eisler while he was residing on the Pacific Coast make this rather loosely organized collection of occasional pieces what is certainly the most important song cycle of the twentieth century. Unlike many other exiles, Eisler was extremely successful in California, both artistically and financially. In the expanding entertainment industry there was an increasing demand for new film music, which Eisler supplied both willingly and reliably. His songs reveal the other side of his life in exile yearning for home, reluctance to come to terms with his fate, and the insecurity of his life in exile. Once again Bertoit Brecht authored a great many of these impressive texts. The precise length of the Hollywood Songbook and the order of it's titles are not entirely clear. The usual order of the thirty-two songs was not presented in full until 1982, forty years after Eisler's death. Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher complement this extensive cycle with some pieces from their temporal and topical context. The result is a most deeply moving, stellar song performance, presented with profound sympathy but without any edifying kitsch.