Spoldzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble - Peszat: Music for Culture Wars - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Composer Eric Moe draws from a wide well of influences, integrating various elements from across the aesthetic spectrum into music that is rhythmically propulsive and preserves an emphasis on melodic development and harmonic context. The works on his latest collection, InchUncanny Affable Machines,Inch are all engaged, in one form or another, with the paradigm of human/machine interaction. Firmly within a polemical tradition related to electro-acoustic composition, Moe engages with the complex dynamics suggested by a performance involving a live human and a prerecorded track. Many of the sounds on the playback are InchorganicInch themselves, however, involving manipulated recordings of human performers, or recorded sounds from the environment. And of course, in order to coordinate with the playback, a live performer needs to discipline themselves to execute the passagework precisely with the tape each time, making themselves more machine-like. This is just one of the ways that the medium invites us into a fascinating dialogue blurring the lines between the technological and the human, and Moe is acutely aware of this in his approach.

Over a century of captivating French music for the flute, from Mélanie Bonis (1858-1937) to Élise Bertrand (b.2000), including a premiere on disc. From the shepherds-pipe dances of Lully to the pan-flute of Debussy's faun and beyond, French music has always had a special affinity with the flute. Anna Wierer explores some lesser-known byways of this rich repertoire with her new album, which promises 'Révélations' galore. She begins with Lili Boulanger's evocation of a spring morning, as full of new life as a field of young lambs. Among her contemporaries was Pierre Camus, a student of Fauré his Chanson et Badinerie presents a pair of contrasting miniatures characteristic of late French Romanticism; the first melancholic and songful, the second lively and of sweeping lightness. The most extended work here is the four-movement Sonata by Mélanie Bonis, known in her time as the androgynous Mel so that her music would not be judged as inferior to a man's and indeed the sumptuous modal-oriental harmonies and idiomatic writing for both instruments place it in the front rank of French flute sonatas. A century on, Bonis's music has belatedly won a place in the modern repertoire - by contrast, Élise Bertrand is at the beginning of a promising career. She composed her Impressions Liturgiques Op.2 at the age of 15, inspired by Maurice Duruflé's Requiem. Dating from 1946, Pierre Sancan's Sonatine floats in on the breeze as a piece of postwar escapism, as light and sensuous as the creation of a master patissier. Finally, Anna Wierer and Alina Pronina turn to the more complex world of André Jolivet, whose Chant de Linos (1944) shares a theme of antiquity with Debussy's Prelude but explores a darker, more troubled landscape over the course of it's ten eventful minutes. This is the second Brilliant Classics album from the well-established duo of Anna Wierer and Alina Pronina, followi

Tenor Charles Castronovo celebrates his first Delos solo album with an all Verdi programme which showcases the composer's spellbinding use of theatrical devices. Noble Renegades offers a collection of complete scenes from operas such as Don Carlos, Luisa Miller and I Lombardi which encompass the emotional arc the protagonists experience as the story unfolds, very much epitomizing Verdi's vision of opera as a true Inchoperatic theaterInch. This album shows Verdi's profound influence on Charles's career, featuring roles he has performed all over the world. He is accompanied by Inchthe singer's dream collaboratorInch Constantine Orbelian and his Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. Distinguished singers Kristin Sampson, Tomas Pavilionis and Tadas Girininkas, as well as the Kaunas State Choir join in.