Ariel String Quartet
D’Arcy Reynolds’s music defies listeners to guess when it was written. At times completely immersed in the past, while soon thereafter totally contemporary. Although her music defies time, today is her birthday. The past keeps changing indeed! Happy birthday.
—FJO
Robert Spring, clarinet; ProMusica Chamber Orchestra conducted by Timothy Russell
The way Peter Schickele has incorporated Philip Glass-influenced melodies into the otherwise non-minimalist music he writes under his own name (rather than as PDQ) shows how evolution never quite works out in predictable ways. One minute into the first movement of his Clarinet Concerto, featured on a disc primarily of American premieres, and Schickele uses those trademark arpeggios to show off the tone quality of the clarinet throughout its range.
—FJO
Fred Sherry, cello; Boston Modern Orchestra Project conducted by Gil Rose
Every possible way to introduce a soloist in a concerto has been done to death, so why not just verbally introduce him? That’s what Steve Mackey asks conductor Gil Rose of BMPT to do with cellist Fred Sherry in his zany Banana Dump Truck which also features some really cool percussion writing. Filling out the CD are his now trademark prog-rock saturated electric guitar forays both with Cherry and BMOP.
—FJO
1. John Mackey: Breakdown Tango (8:57)
2-5. George Tsontakis: Eclipse (21:52)
6. James Matheson: Buzz (6:43)
7. Kevin Puts: Simaku (7:35)
8. Stefan Freund: dodecaphunphrolic (3:36)
9-14. Carter Pann: Antares (18:33)
1. Julián Carrillo: Preludio a Colon (9:52)
2. Lou Harrison: At The Tomb Of Charles Ives (3:51)
3-4. Giacinto Scelsi: Ko-Lho (9:17)
5. Iannis Xenakis: Anaktoria (15:27)
6-8. Charles Ives: String Quartet #2 (22:19)
9-10. Harry Partch: 2 Settings From Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (6:49)
