For February 2020, the #ClassicsaDay team chose film music as its theme. What exactly is the intersection of classical and film music? Share your answers with a post on Twitter or Facebook, with a link to musical examples. Some film composers began in the classical world. And some film composers have transitioned to classical music. For […]
Classical
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Peteris Vasks – Works for Piano Trio work for me
What I admire most about Peteris Vasks is his deep spirituality. It permeates all of his music, even his early avant-garde compositions. This release features three of his works for piano trio. All three are quintessentially Vasks. They radiate an aura of serenity, even during the fastest and loudest passages. The music seems far removed […]
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Homilius Christmas Cantatas beat the rush
This release had me scratching my head. Why was an album of Advent and Christmas music released in February? Most folks (even me) have our Christmas decorations dismantled and packed away for another year. Of course, these cantatas by Gottfried August Homilius don’t really have a Christmassy sound. Homilius wrote in the empfindsamer style, which supplanted the […]
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Walter Braunfels Piano Music presents a different face
Capriccio continues its survey of Walter Braunfels’ music. This installment features music for the piano — mostly piano four-hand music. Braunfels was a concert pianist, so these works lay well on the keyboards. And they also demand a lot from the players. Tatjana Blome and Holger Groschopp perform with distinction. Their interpretation of Braunfels Post-Romantic […]
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Guitar Double Concertos Showcase Spanish Composers
I was a little surprised when this album crossed my desk. I thought it was an album of concertos for two guitars. Not quite. It’s an album of concertos for two instruments, one of which is always a guitar. Each concerto pairs the guitar with a different instrument. Each is written by a different composer, […]
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#ClassicsaDay #ClassicalFilmScore Week 1
For February 2020, the #ClassicsaDay team chose film music as its theme. What exactly is the intersection of classical and film music? Share your answers with a post on Twitter or Facebook, with a link to musical examples. Some film composers began in the classical world. And some film composers have transitioned to classical music. […]
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Pivotal Symphonies by Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist
Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist has a musical career that almost makes him an outsider artist. He was a jazz pianist and bandleader. He began formal studies but dropped out because he felt the curriculum too confining. Instead, he took lessons from several musicians, each teaching a different aspect of music. One of them was Dag Wiren […]
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Composer Alfonso Romero Asenjo Transcends Trends
In the liner notes Spanish composer Alfonso Romero Asenjo is described as “trans-avant-garde.” I think that’s a fair description. The music in this release struck me as a unique blend of pre- and post-atonal elements. The most recent work on the album, the String Symphony, is only six years old. Asenjo’s compositional materials are deceptively […]
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Hummel Piano Concertos on original instruments. Hmmm
Brilliant Records continues their traversal of Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s piano concertos. It’s a worthy project. Hummel was a major figure in the early 19th Century Vienna. He was friends of both Beethoven and Schubert. He was regarded as near-equal to the former, and more successful than the latter. Hummel was a virtuous pianist (at age […]