Name: Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (1913) @Cmaj7
Uploaded: 2024-10-20T08:17:00-05:00
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (1913)

Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (1913)

Cmaj7 2024-10-20 | Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (1913)

Georg Friedrich Haas - im Schatten der Harfen, for microtonal harp and ensemble (2018)

Cmaj7 2024-09-29 | 00:00 An eerie soundscape created by chaotic microtonal arpeggios, rumbling percussion, and piercingly high strings
02:26 A melody on a low microtonal cluster begins to form itself. The ensemble becomes more frantic and chaotic (5:32)
08:08 (8:44) The ensemble gradually converges upon the harmonics of the low C: a calm, warm atmosphere is formed. (9:40) Cellos climb into its highest harmonics
10:38 The harp introduces the contradictory harmonics of a sharpened E♭, and the ensemble adapts, declaiming them grandly.
11:49 The harp surreptitiously switches to a flattened A's overtone series, and the ensemble again adapts, now more peacefully (12:35). Interjections by the harp of a sharpened F's overtone series
14:16 Traditionally tuned harp plays, strongly dissonant against the warm harmonic chord of the flattened A. Keyboard percussion reinforce the unsettling soundscape, and the warm backdrop gradually falls apart
16:22 Order and peace are gradually reformed, convening on the harmonics of a sharpened E♭. (17:19) The contrabass climbs into the extremely high harmonics
19:05 A sudden swell of power, before the ensemble calms down again, gradually shifting to new overtone series (20:31)
21:29 The harp cycles through the various overtone series as the ensemble adapts
22:12 Percussion and hard-struck harp chords drive a rhythmic ending to the piece

Score available from Ricordi: issuu.com/casaricordi/docs/haas_imschattenderharfen_score_wm

Composer: Georg Friedrich Haas (August 16, 1953 –)
Ensemble: Klangforum Wien conducted by Sylvain Cambreling

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Lili Boulanger - Dun soir triste, orchestra (1918)

Cmaj7 2024-08-19 | 00:00 A heavy and dark transformation of the light and bright motif of D'un matin de printemps. (1:19) The brooding intensity slowly grows until...
02:47 The roaringly powerful entrance of trumpets and trombones (3:31)
04:01 Funereal, painful, the persistent, haunting beating of drums
05:22 Soft, distant solos over a subtle, mysterious backdrop of celesta and harp
06:53 Heavy brass snaps the music out of the calm (8:06). A solemn intensity starts building again into...
09:02 An enormously intense fff climax, abound with searing dissonances
10:06 Gorgeous final moments of calm and clarity, but tinged with a reminder of the pain of before

Composer: Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (August 21, 1893 – March 15 , 1918)
Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier

Score and parts available on IMSLP:
imslp.org/wiki/D%27un_soir_triste_%28Boulanger,_Lili%29#IMSLP925963
This is a companion piece to D'un matin de printemps, score video for that here: youtu.be/e-N-xjifOZg

English title: Of a Sad Evening
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Wolfgang Rihm - Schwarzer und roter Tanz [Black and Red Dance] (1983)

Cmaj7 2024-07-28 | 00:00 A pounding bass ostinato and aggressive rhythmic tremolos drive the dance (0:35) Percussion begins to color the sound
01:36 Piano and cello join the ostinato as the rhythm becomes more chaotic (2:55)
04:30 The full orchestra joins in the chaos: violent tremolos, stings, and swells before gradually coming together (6:07) (07:07)
08:20 The music becomes more nebulous as the ostinato is lost (8:42) Long held notes move in dissonant counterpoint
09:48 Huge, grand chords and low drums in a ceremonial section
11:00 Violent polyrhythms and wild arpeggios as the crazed dance briefly returns
11:51 A calmer, more lyrical section: warm string and brass chorales and brighter timbres (14:04)
15:33 The dance returns to its most crazed yet (15:54) before disappearing into the highest registers

Score available from Universal Edition universaledition.com/Werke/Schwarzer-und-roter-Tanz/P0032759

Composer: Wolfgang Rihm (March 13, 1952 – July 27, 2024)
Orchestra: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly

Schwarzer und roter Tanz, fragment aus 'Tutuguri', Poème dansé, für großes Orchester

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Jianer Zhu - A Wonder of Naxi (1984)

Cmaj7 2024-07-14 | The orchestration of this piece is so outstanding, especially the haunting 1st and tender 3rd movement.
00:00 1. The Bronze Water Clock. An eerie nocturne. Piercing strings and creeping percussion introduce a mysterious saxophone solo (1:27)
02:24 Passionate, almost drunken, before receding back into the night
04:31 2. Bees Crossing the River. A frantic staccato theme interplays with a grand flowing theme (5:58)
07:04 3. A Heart-to-Heart Between a Mother and Daughter. Imposing chords introduce the mother (cello solo). (7:44) The daughter (violin solo) enters tenderly but worried (8:09 celesta here is so unsettlingly good...)
08:34 Mother and daughter are in discord, playing in separate keys (9:08 celesta again :) )
09:26 A passionate climax as mother and daughter continue to struggle, before...
10:27 They find peace together in D. A gorgeously tender duet above shining string chords. (11:00) Celesta and harp blissfully end the movement
11:17 4. Dogs Chasing a Deer. Savage horns and drums announce the start of the chase.
11:43 A multitude of polyrhythms and bright timbres (like a Chinese Steve Reich) as the chase begins
12:18 The chase becomes more frenzied and violent (13:12) (13:44) (14:06)
14:36 The wild climax: ripping brass and string glissandos, shrieking woodwinds, and the pounding drive of the drums

Composer: Jian'er Zhu (朱践耳 Zhū Jiàn'ěr) (October 18, 1922 – August 15, 2017)
Orchestra: Hong Kong Sinfonietta conducted by Tsung Yeh

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Tōru Takemitsu - Winter (1971)

Cmaj7 2024-06-30 | 0:00 A piercing, icy soundscape is built, particularly by bowed percussion and glassy string harmonics
1:06 Biting celesta and harp among foggy woodwind and string tremolos
1:51 Slippery tone cluster glissandos and sharp pizzicati
2:43 Winter winds blow quietly through the strings and brass. Sparkling percussion and harps are heard in the distance, and fade out
3:46 Harshly bright strikes and chords wake us from the stupor
5:30 Chilling near-tutti chords
5:57 Warm string harmonics, bells and harps bring a gentle end to Winter

Score available from Durand-Salabert-Eschig
Composer: Tōru Takemitsu (武満徹 Takemitsu Tōru) (October 8, 1930 – February 20, 1996)
Orchestra: Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hiroyuki Iwaki

This orchestral work was composed in 1971 for the Sapporo Winter Olympics. There are many sounds evocative of wintertime - sustained glassy harmonics, shivering wind and string tremolos, icy bell and harp combinations, sharp pizzicati, slippery tone cluster glissandos, extremely quiet blue northern wind tone clusters in the distances. Takemitsu is aiming primarily at vertical writing in this piece - single texture events or chords that like the "shakuhachi, arise vertically, like a tree" in contrast to the horizontal continuity (melodies, chord progressions and development) of most Western music, of "sounds which walk along the horizon" (Takemitsu). A lovely poetic work of a brief 7-minute duration.
—Gene Tyranny
allmusic.com/composition/winter-fuyu-for-orchestra-mc0002371382

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Frederick Delius - Songs of Sunset (1907)

Cmaj7 2024-06-16 | A beautifully sweet set of songs, especially the endings of each. Delius and Messiaen probably could've been good friends with all the major sixth chords...
00:00 A song of the setting sun! [An initially sweet and quiet chorale, moves around nervously with heavy chromaticism]
03:26 Cease smiling, Dear! [A bright, romantic duet of soprano and baritone solos] (4:45 rather more animated)
08:12 Pale amber sunlight falls [Slow and mysterious. Beautifully warm chorus enters alongside brilliant rays of flutes]
12:38 Exceeding sorrow consumeth my sad heart! [An anguished soprano solo]
16:20 By the sad waters of separation [A lamentful baritone solo]
21:08 See how the trees and the osiers lithe [A light-hearted choral march decorated with impressionistic ornamentation]
24:43 I was not sorrowful, I could not weep [Baritone solo, gorgeously subtle orchestration around it. (Reminds me of one of the Genshin Liyue tracks actually)]
27:53 [The ending of the section is just heart-achingly gorgeous]
29:26 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter [Solo soprano and baritone combine with the chorus for a grand final song, ending calmly and sweetly in a dream]

Composer: Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (January 29, 1862 – June 10, 1934)
Orchestra: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox
Choruses: Waynflete Singers, Southern Voices, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus

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Claude Vivier - Trois airs pour un opéra imaginaire (1982)

Cmaj7 2024-06-02 | 0:00 First Air. A lament in German and imaginary language among a hypnotizing flurry of orchestra arpeggios (Where is love)
3:45 (A beautifully eerie spectral sequence)
4:17 Second Air. A homophonic spectral chorale, gradually breaks apart into counterpoint
6:47 A thin bittersweet texture (the blending of voice and clarinet is so good), as the orchestra move in independent tempos towards the high register
8:28 Third Air. A harsh return to homophony, moving towards a sound/noise from the whole ensemble

This work is literally what the title suggests. The main elements of my piece are: a spectrum with regular pulsation moving towards an irregular and individual pulsing; from this pulsing arises a series of short, brilliant lines rocketing towards the highest register. The rhythm thus produced flattens out more and more to become pure duration. Everything becomes homophonic only to break up once again, becoming contrapuntal and stabilizing in an orchestration that becomes ever thinner and moves more and more towards the high register. Finally there is an abrupt return to homophony, moving towards a sound/noise from the whole ensemble, which shatters brutally on a pure interval in order to allow a return to spectral writing.

— Claude Vivier

Happy pride :). The themes of Vivier's pieces are largely seen as autobiographical – often centering around loneliness and ostracization, the search for love and companionship, and the voyaging of foreign lands [Wikipedia], often derived from the conflict between his homosexuality and his Catholic upbringing.

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Claude-Vivier-Trois-airs-pour-un-opera-imaginaire/47779

Composer: Claude Vivier (April 14, 1948 – March 7, 1983)
Soprano: Marie-Annick Béliveau
Orchestra: Ensemble de la Société de musique contemporaine du Québec conducted by Walter Boudreau

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Qigang Chen - Enchantements oubliés (2004)

Cmaj7 2024-05-19 | Simply an absolutely gorgeous piece, really showcasing Chen's brilliant impressionistic harmonies and orchestration
00:00 Subtle, warm melodies on luscious, shimmering chords (3:24) More rapid percussion interjections begin to color the soundscape (and foreshadow later sections) (5:04)
06:34 An energetic but ever light dance begins, its rhythm constantly shifting, its mood shifting between carefree and menacing
08:58 A nostalgic return to the melodies of the beginning (10:08) Mini-climax before the dance returns
11:57 Polytonal arpeggios bring a stressed end to the dance, before returning to warm, lyrical melodies, with deep, rich piano and harp chords underneath (12:45)
13:56 Climax: broad, sweeping percussion arpeggios as the violins sing grandly yet so tenderly
15:27 Heart-achingly beautiful solo melodies begin to be played in the resonance of the climax, before the dance picks up again (16:39)
17:38 The warm melodies and the dance begin to mix (This section is just so bright and cheerful)
20:20 ...before dissolving into piercing string chords and polytonal percussion arpeggios
21:34 Final distant echos of the melodies of before, tinged with string clusters, vibraphone, and harp
25:31 A final small burst of color: warm, resonant harp, vibraphone, and marimba, before the music fades away

Score available from Gérard Billaudot

Composer: Qigang Chen (陈其钢 Chén Qígāng) (August 28, 1951 – )
Orchestra: Taiwan Philharmonic conducted by Shao-Chia Lü

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Gustav Holst - Two Motets The Evening-Watch & Sing me the men (1924/1925)

Cmaj7 2024-05-05 | 0:00 THE EVENING-WATCH. A gorgeous chorale based on quartal harmonies
4:40 SING ME THE MEN. A bright jaunty tune (5:24) sweetening as the choir enters
6:49 Angelic arpeggios in the sopranos and altos above grand tenor and bass melodies (7:34)
8:22 An initially sweet ending turns dark

Composer: Gustav Theodore Holst (September 21, 1874 – May 25, 1934)
Chorus: Finzi Singers directed by Paul Spicer

The Evening-Watch will be performed at the BBC Proms this year so hype to anyone going to that :)

Score available from my GitHub: github.com/CMajSeven/HolstTwoMotets/releases/download/1.0/Two_Motets_full_score.pdf
and IMSLP: imslp.org/wiki/Two_Motets_%28Holst,_Gustav%29

Errata: 2.142 Tenor 2 lyrics should match other voices

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Unsuk Chin - Mannequin (2014/2015)

Cmaj7 2024-04-21 | 00:00 1. MUSIC BOX - FEVER DREAM. An eerie music box (celesta) plays above subtle percussion machinations. Piercing string and flute harmonics sneak in
1:25 The music becomes panicked and frantic. (The orchestration techniques here are so astounding and varied, I can't describe them all) (2:09)(3:06)(3:49) (4:37)(5:05)
5:54 The music box creeps back in and fades away over a simultaneously warm and distressing string soundscape
07:01 2. SANDMAN AND CHILD. A gentle, eerily inviting pulse, slowly colored in/corrupted by the orchestra
8:31 A sudden violent turn of brass stings and frantic string runs (9:03) The gentle pulse returns but stressed by seemingly infinitely climbing string glissandos (10:10)
10:28 Climaxes in a wild flurry from all the orchestra (10:56) before the climbing string glisses slowly burn away the movement, despite desperate wind interjections
12:43 3. DANCE OF THE CLOCKWORK GIRL. A stilted dance hockets throughout the orchestra, gradually winding up (14:15)
15:45 Strident strings, brass stings, and woodwind flurries power the climax (16:14) before dissolving into unsynchronized pizz and harmonics
17:56 4. THE STOLEN EYES. The basses dance an awkward dance below ethereal bowed percussion (19:04) Alarming muted trumpets and distressed woodwinds
20:05 A deep bass drive, stabbing violin tremelos, as if being chased (20:42) High, piercing glisses, like sirens
22:32 A climactic nervous breakdown as all the orchestra rapidly start falling (23:12) Deep rumblings basses and the contrabassoon, stinging violin harmonics and bowed percussion, and brass stings end the piece

Composer: Unsuk Chin (진은숙 Chin Unsuk) (July 14, 1961 –)
Orchestra: Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música conducted by Baldur Brönnimann (Original video: youtu.be/x0IgK1Le124)

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Unsuk-Chin-Mannequin/57352

Mannequin tells a story, though neither in the form of a linear narrative nor in the manner of illustrative programme music: the line between dreams and reality is being crossed in a surreal manner, with the main themes of the scenario being problems of perception and of personal identity. It is freely based on the fantastical novella The Sandman, written by German writer, composer, music critic, lawyer, cabaret artist and draughtsman E. T. A. Hoffmann.

Mannequin consists of four movements. The first two movements, respectively titled Music Box – Fever Dream and Sandman and Child refer to Nathanael's childhood and how his nanny used to instil terror in him by a cautionary tale about the Sandman who steals misbehaving children's eyes and feeds them to his offspring who live in the crescent moon. Nathanael associates the Sandman's figure with a half-mythical and sinister person named Coppelius, who seems in some way connected with the decline of Nathanael's family and who continues to haunt the adult Nathanael's life in the guise of a number of grotesque 'doppelgangers'. The third movement, Dance of the Clockwork Girl, refers to Olimpia, a female life-size automaton, with whom Nathanael falls in love, without realizing its true nature until it is being destroyed during a fight between its inventor Spalanzani and Coppola, a dubious seller of optical aids (both apparently being doubles of Sandman/Coppelius). The title of the last movement, The Stolen Eyes, refers to the ubiquitous 'eye leitmotif': throughout Hoffmann's tale, Sandman and his 'doppelgangers' (Spalanzani, Coppelius and Coppola) are stealing, inventing or selling eyes – a motive that, similarly to the title of Chin's work (Mannequin), might of course also be understood allegorically.

—Maris Gothóni

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Louis Andriessen - La Girò, Violin Concerto (2011)

Cmaj7 2024-04-07 | 00:00 I. A ghostly, softly dissonant yet sweet introduction (01:43) The ensemble builds a melancholy bed of sound under the slow, longing violin melody
02:51 A bright quasi-Vivaldi toccata (3:33) (4:52)
05:58 Burningly beautiful chords and the sweet introduction melody bookend the movement (6:41)
07:00 II. The violinist sings and plays a charming Italian folk song. She narrates a traumatic experience playing [in front of her father?] as a child.
09:21 The ensemble joins in her agony with brash, violent music
10:25 An energetic toccata, but still carrying the earlier sorrow (11:39) A slight reprieve with more carefree, dancing woodwinds
12:15 III. "I hate thirds." The violinist recounts a nightmare where her friends and family are shot whenever she makes mistakes. (14:32)
15:02 The violinist returns playing a sorrowful melody (15:35) stressed by harsh bell chords (16:12) The ensemble plays a mocking melody (16:27)
17:07 IV. Sharp piercing chords as the violinist obsessively plays a descending glissando figure (20:27) Softer warmer chords
21:30 Frustrated, the glissando figure devolves into "shrieking seagull" noises (22:28) A bitterly lonely chord ends the piece.

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Louis-Andriessen-La-Giro/56280

When Enzo Restagno asked me to write a piece for this year’s MITO Festival, I was honoured. In the early sixties I lived in Italy for a year, and ever since then I have felt a strong bond with that country.

In La Girò, a piece for violin and ensemble, I am musing about a composer I admire a lot: maestro Antonio Vivaldi. The title refers to Anna Girò, Vivaldi’s favourite singer who, together with her sister, lived in his house for some time.

The piece would not have become the 'performance' it is without the violinist Monica Germino. The soloist (La Girò, perhaps?) does not only play the violin. She also sings an Italian song, whispers and talks, tells stories and dreams.

The ensemble consists of a small chamber orchestra, with an added piano, harp, cymbalom and some percussion.

The piece has four parts. The first three form a kind of concertino. The actual musical drama takes place in the fourth, slow part.

The work is dedicated to Monica Germino.

— Louis Andriessen

Composer: Louis Joseph Andriessen (June 6, 1939 – July 1, 2021)
Violinist: Monica Germino
Orchestra: Asko|Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw

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Einojuhani Rautavaara - Clarinet Concerto (2001)

Cmaj7 2024-03-24 | 00:00 I - DRAMMATICO. Agitated solo clarinet rises out of orchestral eruptions, above nervous string dissonances
02:25 Cantabile. The sound begins to open up with broad singing horn and solo clarinet (3:20) amidst sweeping string arpeggios (4:16) (4:54) and warm harp and vibraphone arpeggios
06:16 A harsh climax leading into (7:05) the cadenza. (9:31) Bass clarinet joins in, returning to...
10:01 Cantabile. Singing strings and woodwinds. (10:34) The eruptions of the introduction return but give way to...
11:21 Sweet, tranquil flutes and oboes alongside the solo clarinet, before these also fade away among nervous string tremolos
13:26 II - ADAGIO ASSAI. "A continuous poetic narration." A bittersweet bed of strings as the solo clarinet takes a beautifully lyrical melody. (15:56) Harp and clarinet flourishes color the sound. (18:36)
20:59 III - VIVACE. Anxious and energetic virtuosic themes (21:42) (22:03)
22:42 The solo clarinet sings a brighter melody over vibrant harp and vibraphone arpeggios. (23:09) Sneaky solo clarinet (24:11)
25:05 The grand finale as the solo clarinet reaches into its highest ranges, above massive sweeping orchestral arpeggios and glissandos

Score available from Fennica Gehman: https://webshop.fennicagehrman.fi/page/product/clarinet-concerto/121489

Composer: Einojuhani Rautavaara (October 9, 1928 – July 27, 2016)
Clarinetist: Richard Stoltzman
Orchestra: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam

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Michel van der Aa - Spaces of Blank (2007)

Cmaj7 2024-03-10 | 00:00 I. Somber brass blocks vaporize in a stratosphere of high-frequency electronica and cool, soft strings.
01:19 Emily Dickinson "From Blank to Blank". The music takes on a nervous energy. Frantic string and woodwind runs
03:41 Rozalie Hirs "Empty I stumble upon my last angel" (5:35) A luscious yet piercing chorale
08:30 II. Dickinson "Solitude of space". Soft, anxious counterpoint of strings and voice; striking interruptions of percussion and electronics (10:49) (11:54) Violent winds and electronic scramble end the poem
12:17 Anne Carson "Why did I awake lonely". Pensive arpeggiated chords, nervous shaking strings (14:46) Fierce horn soli among violent brass strings
15:45 A slow and mysterious ending, prominently featuring 2 vibraphones
17:56 III. Rapid buzzing of strings and electronics. Warm brass, but their disjointed entrances only add upon the anxiety (19:00) Hirs "Here is a white space"
21:37 Sweet and luminous, almost meditative among gongs and woodblocks
23:31 An anxious chorale, slowly growing to an enormous intensity, and suddenly cutting out to (25:28) an utterly lonely ending: singer alone with distant high-frequency ambient sounds

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Michel-van-der-Aa-Spaces-of-Blank/52040
Description adapted from: vanderaa.net/work/spacesofblank

Composer: Michel van der Aa (March 10, 1970 –)
Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Ed Spanjaard
Singer: Christianne Stotijn

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Julia Wolfe - Fire in My Mouth (2019)

Cmaj7 2024-02-25 | 00:00 I. IMMIGRATION. Growing trepidation and excitement before boarding a boat to New York. Glowing vocal chords (1:04) (1:38) (2:24)
03:58 Nervously energetic and rhythmic as the journey begins (4:30)
06:13 A piercingly beautiful cluster of strings and voices thickens, before becoming cheery and lively among woodwind and percussion flurries (7:22) (8:15)
09:34 A foreboding ending to the movement climaxing in a huge ringing cluster (10:54)
11:26 II. FACTORY. "Geiger counter" strings, woodwind "jet whistles", deep percussion booms, etc. evoke the sounds of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, slowly growing to an enormous intensity
15:31 A mournful Yiddish folk-tune comes out of the noise, overlapping with a lively Italian tarantella (16:40) Climax among wild wind trills and cluster tremolos (17:41)
18:46 The slow and ominous opening and closing of scissors ends the movement
20:08 III. PROTEST. A protest chant, propelled by grooving percussion and gradually thickening harmony
22:09, 23:18 Feisty, desperate declamations of the girls' dreams to become Americans. Burning vocal chords (24:54)
26:10 The beat continues as Clara Lemlich speaks out against intolerable conditions. Biting final chord (27:42) before a beautiful wash of bowed guitar and strings
29:36 The groove picks up again. Hypnotizing polyrhythms singing various textile terms
31:32 A determined, fiery ending to the movement
32:48 IV. FIRE. "like in a strange dream." Noises of string instruments, as the altos hum a dreamy melody
34:13 A driving strappata beat, increasingly frantic cries of "fire" (36:00)
37:14 Sirens sound (strings violently gliss upwards) (38:28)
39:19 Solemn and stunned as workers begin to jump out of the burning factory (40:33)
41:33 "Irrational, Wild, Incoherent." Extremely violent tremolos, trills, and glisses as more workers jump
43:37 Rose Schneiderman's speech, "serious, focused, quietly distraught"
45:07 Bells ring out as the names of the 146 victims are sung out in a gorgeously bitter ending

Score available from Ricordi/Red Poppy Music: juliawolfemusic.com/music/fire-in-my-mouth

Fire in my mouth is based on the garment industry in New York City at the turn of the century, with a focus on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and its aftermath. Drawing upon contemporary accounts of immigration, labor, and activism amongst the garment workers of the Lower East Side, Fire in my mouth brings the world and words of the garment workers to the forefront.

Composer: Julia Wolfe (December 18, 1958 – )
Orchestra: New York Philharmonic conducted by Jaap van Zweden
Chorus: The Crossing directed by Donald Nally
Girls' Chorus: Young People's Chorus of New York City directed by Francisco J. Núñez

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Unsuk Chin - Graffiti (2013)

Cmaj7 2024-02-11 | One of many brilliant showcases of Unsuk Chin's mastery of orchestral color
00:00 1 - PALIMPSEST. Orchestral sounds slowly emerge: waves of pizzicatos, mallet percussion, glowing harmonic swells, furtive string runs in tight canon, ...
02:19 A kaleidoscope of styles is built: a haunting string chorale, (2:50) mixing with agitated woodwinds. (3:20) Frantic rapid articulations (4:07) A hushed mini-nocturne (5:14) A jagged quasi-dance (6:14) The chorale mixed with violent orchestral flashes (7:38)
08:01 A highly rhythmic conclusion, gradually growing more violent, before falling away into a wash of thin timbres and breath noise
09:53 2 - NOTTURNO URBANO. Distant bells draw near. Eerie yet warm woodwind multiphonics and micropolyphony (13:09)
14:50 A sense of urgency as strings and woodwinds play frantic rapid tremolos, climaxing in a...
15:24 ...a roaring brass cluster. The sound softens until a beautifully warm Gmaj7/11 chord (15:57), and a return to the bells of the beginning of the movement
17:04 3 - PASSACAGLIA. A whimsical brass passacaglia anchors the movement. Continuous "flitting interjections of different instruments, which are highly varied in character and length"

Composer: Unsuk Chin (진은숙 Chin Unsuk) (July 14, 1961 –)
Orchestra: Ensemble Musikfabrik conducted by Peter Rundel

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Unsuk-Chin-Graffiti/54510
Unsuk Chin playlist: youtube.com/watch?v=XrJQdQJR_d4&list=PLyw-Me-kQIeAplcPPklnkswhFwEOBCrUh&index=1

Most of us, when confronted with the term "graffiti," are likely to associate it with the rather desolate wall scrawlings all over our urban landscapes. However, this is not the whole picture: graffiti is an age-old form of artistic expression, which – unexpectedly, and without ever attempting to be "high art" – can be very creative. No less artists than Klee, Miró, Dubuffet, and Picasso were interested in it (the latter painting examples himself on Parisian walls). In our time, there is the highly interesting and controversial phenomenon of Street Art, which has occasionally wittily succeeded in criticizing the commercialization and uniformization of cities. At their best, street artists have been able to thwart the expectations created by omnipresent mass media and by advertising – one can find some particularly remarkable examples in metropolises such as Berlin, Paris, or New York.

Though this was the initial stimulus for Graffiti, it finally branched into rather different directions: it is only very loosely, if at all, connected to the phenomenon of Street Art (or to the visual arts). The music is not illustrative nor is it programmatic; what remained from the initial creative nucleus is little more than the title and the dialectic between primitivism and refinement, which captured my attention in some noteworthy examples of Street Art. My main idea, at the end, was to compose a music which is not restricted as to time or place, and which offers strong contrasts between different modes of expression.

The movements' headings give a hint of the changing modes, moods, and structures of the music. The first movement, "Palimpsest," is polydimensional and many-layered; one can hear allusions to a multiplicity of styles, which have been taken from their original context and juxtaposed in a kaleidoscopic manner.

The second movement, "Notturno urbano," forms a strong contrast to the hyperactive previous movement. It starts with distant and gradually approaching bell-like sounds, from which the whole movement's musical material is being derived: from their resonance simple intervallic relations emerge, which are being overwhelmed by more and more instruments. As a result, the music oscillates between simplicity and highly complex micropolyphony. The instruments are often used in an unconventional way: the winds as well as the strings employ extended techniques, which contributes to the aloofness and the mysteriousness of the movement.

The third, highly virtuosic, movement, is a kind of an "urban passacaglia" (the name of this musical form actually derives from the Spanish "pasar una calle" (to walk along a street). Formally, the passacaglia plays a central role throughout the movement. It consists of eight incisive chords, which are played continuously by the brass, albeit always in a different way. Two worlds collide in this movement: the brass attacks are commented upon by flitting interjections of different instruments, which are highly varied in character and length. These fragmentary comments are constantly interrupted by the brass passacaglia.

As a whole, the musical language of Graffiti shifts between roughness and refinement, complexity and transparency. It is rich in contrast and labyrinthine, neither tonal nor atonal. Graffiti calls for great agility, virtuosity, and constant changes of perspective from the musicians; each instrument is being treated as a soloist.

— Unsuk Chin

George Benjamin - Viola, Viola, for viola and viola (1997)

Cmaj7 2024-01-28 | 0:00 The violas almost imperceptibly trade a monotonic line, with increasing interjections by vibrant triple stops and furtive runs.
1:29 Misterioso. More colors of the violas are brought forth, with a persistent coarse 2-note motif.
3:34 Cantabile. Independent lines begin to flourish, often colored by bright thin harmonics.
6:41 Climax of wide sonorous chords and tremolos
7:58 Reverberant pizzicato chords, enhanced with artificial harmonic echos, close out the piece.

The idea of a viola duo was that of Toru Takemitsu, who was responsible for Viola, Viola being commissioned for the opening of the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall in 1997. My initial thoughts of how to solve the compositional problems inherent within this unconventional medium may have suggested the viola's accustomed role as a melancholy voice hidden in the shadows. Once under way, however, a completely different instrumental character — fiery and energetic — imposed itself. My desire was to conjure an almost orchestral depth and variety of sound. At first the instruments are virtually braided together — numerous elements hocket between the players at a rate that the ear has difficulty in perceiving who plays what. Through this a larger array of instruments in suggested, each defined by motif, pace, dynamic and, above all, register. Only towards the work's cantabile centre do clearly independent lines begin to flourish. The implied harmony is intended to be as sonorous as possible, the texture at times maintaining four or more parts for sustained periods.

Score available from Faber Music: fabermusic.com/music/viola-viola-2767
Composer: Sir George William John Benjamin (January 31, 1960 –)
Violists: Tabea Zimmermann and Antoine Tamestit

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François Couperin - Concert royal no. 2 (1714)

Cmaj7 2024-01-14 | 00:00 Prélude - An intimate prelude, first with solo harpsichord, (1:28) then joined by flute and viol
03:08 Allemande Fuguée - a joyous, springy dance fashioned as a fugue
05:14 Air tendre - a gentle, tender air in D minor, featuring viol and violin
09:32 Air contrefugué - a vigorous fugue in D minor, featuring oboe and bassoon
12:19 Échos - Majestic themes echoed so sweetly and softly

Composer: François Couperin "le Grand" (November 10, 1668 – September 11, 1733)
Performers: Les Timbres

Couperin playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyw-Me-kQIeBA8MfwCbuvvA3-AQqGbU3I
Concert royal no. 3 youtu.be/jlCqsn78V4c
Concert royal no. 4 youtu.be/Iu6_VaP746E (1 to come)
S.P.'s video with Jordi Savall recording youtu.be/RmdlIpZBuqs?t=799

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Deuxième (2ème) concert des Concerts Royaux

David Moliner - Hypotyposis saturniennes (2023)

Cmaj7 2023-12-31 | Hypotyposes saturniennes describes the subconscious as the driving creative force, calls the contradictory God of abundance, but also of hard work and melancholy. The work uses texts by Arthur Rimbaud, (Hypotyposes saturniennes, ex Belmontet and Age d'or) as well as questions from William Shakespeare and Italian sentences written by the composer himself.

00:00 La veglia (Vigil) - haunting chords on the 5 vowels
02:17 Il mondo dei sogni (World of Dreams) - bleak yet sweet solo melodies
03:43 Melodies fall apart into "ghost low pitches", frantic whistling, wild glisses
08:13 Warm chorus around a solo alto
10:24 Mad consonant and vowel sounds, jet whistles
13:52 A joyous chorale preceding "the enchanted men" (14:29)
16:41 Quirky rhythms of the esoterics
18:25 A haunting final chorale among (bird) whistling

Composer: David Moliner (1991 –)
Chorus: SWR Vokalensemble directed by Marcus Creed

@davidmolinerandres
Video made on the authorization of Universal Edition (UE) Vienna and the composer
universaledition.com/en/Works/Hypotyposis-Saturniennes/P0213576

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Elijah Daniel Smith - Vermillion Glare (2023)

Cmaj7 2023-12-17 | 0:00 Melodies are split apart rhythmically, microtonally, and timbrally
0:59 Harsh prepared piano chords and flashes of string harmonics before falling out to gentler swells
3:21 A striking piano Cmaj7 chord pulls us out into a nearly pitchless soundscape
4:33 Out of the blur of sound, the original flute and clarinet melody returns
5:26 Warm chords over soft bells quasi out of time as the piece fades out, eventually losing pitch altogether

Composer: Elijah Daniel Smith (1995 –) elijahdanielsmith.com
Ensemble: Alarm Will Sound conducted by Alan Pierson
Video of recording: youtube.com/watch?v=7NkyiCTSoqI

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Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla-Symphonie (1948/1990)

Cmaj7 2023-12-10 | Easily one of the greatest pieces ever written, "Turangalîla means all at once love song, hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death."

00:00 I - INTRODUCTION. A bold introduction brings upon the statue theme (0:30) with "the oppressive, terrible brutality of ancient Mexican monuments, has always evoked dread," and the delicate flower theme (2:17) (2:50 Piano Solo)
03:43 The vigorous body of the movement, layering several groups: highly rhythmic ostinatos in the woodwinds and strings, a driving 5/8 gamelan, and biting interjections of brass and piano
06:22 II - CHANT D’AMOUR 1 (Love Song 1). A heavy, piercing introduction before (7:01) the body of the movement alternating between a fast, passionate theme, and a beautifully expressive theme in ondes and strings
11:42 The music grows more manic and impassioned, rising to a glorious climax at 13:22 (14:06)
14:39 III - TURANGALÎLA 1. A meditative theme passed between clarinet and ondes. (15:59) A heavy low brass theme below violent percussion gamelan. (16:33) Theme 1 presented in menacing orchestration (17:08) A pastorale theme in woodwind solos
18:02 The themes are all layered upon each other in a grand climax before fading away with themes 3 and 1
20:21 IV - CHANT D’AMOUR 2. A playful duet of piccolo and bassoon. Rhythmic percussion patterns and piano join in. (21:25) A more energetic "game" as the rest of the orchestra joins in
22:09 A gloriously passionate tutti theme, alternating with sweet and gentle themes
24:53 The previous themes start layering over other, and are joined by birdsong in the piano. (26:57) The layering becomes extremely dense as the statue theme pierces through, culminating in (28:03) a spirited piano solo
30:01 (MUST HEAR!) An astonishingly gorgeously sweet ending in A major, recasting the tutti theme
31:04 V - JOIE DU SANG DES ÉTOILES (Joy of the Blood of the Stars). A joyous frenetic dance in D♭ major, recasting the statue theme. "In order to understand the qualities of excess in the movement, one must remember that the union of true lovers is for them a transformation on a cosmic scale."
33:00 Development of the statue theme, as "rhythmic characters" play in the absolutely wild center of the movement
35:30 The joyous dance returns, pressed by manic piano and percussion, coming (hehe) to a "delirium of passion and joy" at 36:22.
36:34 A fiery piano solo before an epic D♭ major sixth chord concludes the movement
37:25 VI - JARDIN DU SOMMEIL D’AMOUR (Garden of the Sleep of Love). The love theme, played so tenderly by ondes and strings, as birds sing sweetly besides (42:53) Percussion colors the sound
51:19 VII - TURANGALÎLA 2. (51:59) High ondes "full of pity" and deep, "thick, muddy" trombones close in on a Klangfarbenmelodie, "recalling the double terror of the pendulum knife slowly getting nearer the heart of the prisoner while the all of red-hot iron closes in on him." (52:13) Rhythmic canon in percussion (52:39) Solos play in a quasi-scherzo
53:30 An extremely violent and wild rhythmic canon in tutti orchestra
54:55 VIII - DÉVELOPPEMENT D’AMOUR (Development of Love). The brutal statue and chords themes, the delicate flower theme, a playful rapid theme, and the passionate love theme are alternated and developed. More and more of the love theme is allowed to come through (57:36)(59:39) until...
1:01:52 The love theme is presented in its full glory, simultaneously terrifying and heart-achingly beautiful. "Tristan and Yseult transcended by Tristan-Yseult"
1:06:24 IX - TURANGALÎLA 3. A menacing tritone-heavy melody on top of rhythmic modes of 17 durations in the percussion (1:08:43). Strings underline the rhythmic modes, "harmony depending entirely on the rhythm"
1:11:53 X - FINAL. A joyous fanfare in F♯ major, its rhythm continuously shifted, gradually becoming more manic and explosive until...
1:17:18 The final explosion of the love theme. "The power of the brass gains in feeling from the extra-terrestrial voice of the ondes in the extreme treble, communicating to the whole orchestra its light and its tears of joy."
1:18:45 A triumphant coda towards a brilliant final F♯ major chord "Glory and Joy are without end"

Composer: Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992)
Orchestra: SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg conducted by Sylvain Cambreling
Piano: Roger Muraro
Ondes Martenot: Valérie Hartmann-Claverie

John Adams - The Gospel According to the Other Mary (2012)

Cmaj7 2023-12-03 | (See comments!)
A1
00:00 S1 (4:12)
06:55 S2 (8:37)
12:02 C (13:15)
16:19 S3
22:24 S3A (24:10)
24:50 S3B (27:42) (30:35)
33:16 S3C
36:05 [MUST HEAR!]
39:27 C
42:34 S4 (43:17)
49:56 S4A (53:02)
54:43 S5 (56:23)
1:00:32 S5A (1:01:33) (1:09:18)

A2
1:11:22 C
1:15:11 S1(1:18:55)
1:20:52 S2 (1:23:19) (1:27:40)
1:30:43 S3 (1:33:47) (1:34:08)
1:36:55 S3A (1:40:00)
1:41:28 S3B
1:43:39 S4 (1:48:15)
1:51:16 S4A (1:52:13)
1:52:47 S5 (1:54:48) (1:57:21)
1:59:30 C (2:01:51)
2:03:32 S6 (2:06:26)
2:08:41 S6A

Qigang Chen - Itinéraire dune illusion (2018)

Cmaj7 2023-11-19 | 00:00 Calm and expressive - a trumpet solo opens onto gorgeous impressionist harmonies. More sinister harmonies slowly sneak in
03:12 The tension builds with rapid string tremolos, and a menacing bass line. (5:17) A staircase of sound rises out of the depths of the orchestra into a huge biting cluster
05:49 Sweet string harmonies return but with uneasy portamentos, interspersed with cadenza-like keyboard and mallet percussion runs
07:19 With a bit more sway - A 7 measure theme is passed around the orchestra in "klangfarbenmelodie". Gradually, more instruments and counterthemes are layered on top as the music turns frantic and chaotic
12:03 Lightly - the chaos cuts away, as Chen's characteristic elegant string runs feature
15:24 A grand theme in the strings rises over off-kilter ostinatos in an exuberant climax
17:46 A nostalgic piano solo, recalling the sweet and gentle harmonies of the beginning of the piece
18:35 Sensual and subtle

Score in C
Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Qigang-Chen-Itineraire-d-une-illusion-Variations-orchestrales/102446

Composer: Qigang Chen (陈其钢 Chén Qígāng) (August 28, 1951 – )
Orchestra: Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jing Huan

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Brett Dean - Electric Preludes, for electric violin and strings (2012)

Cmaj7 2023-10-29 | 00:00 I. Abandoned Playground: Wide, reverberant arpeggios open onto furtive dense textures in the strings, slowly growing more frenzied (1:43) before returning to a solemn, open sound (2:21)
04:00 II. Topography - Papunya: The electric violin sneaks out of an eerie "spectral drone". The solo and orchestra gradually assert themselves more on a harsh downward motif, before the solo flies off into the extreme upper registers (6:41)
06:59 III. Peripeteia: A rapid frenzy of irregular rhythms in the solo electric violin, opposes an unrelenting beating drive in the orchestra
08:21 IV. The beyonds of mirrors: The electric violin, with an otherworldly theremin-like sound, sings over a kaleidoscope of descending lines.
10:43 (Really this part is just awesome!) The movement ends violently with heavily distorted, overdriven electric violin ("sound hack").
11:20 V. Perpetuum mobile: A hard-edged unrelentless drive
13:20 Cadenza: An open space is left as the "Perpetuum mobile" cuts out, allowing the solo to fill it with reverb and various electronic effects
17:08 VI. Berceuse: Contrapuntal lines rise out of the very depths of the orchestra, leading to a stratospheric lullaby over hauntingly beautiful string chords (18:43, 19:50). The electric violin slowly descends to its very lowest note (21:09) in a gorgeously bittersweet ending.

It seems fitting that my new work for Richard Tognetti and the ACO, “Electric Preludes”, has been commissioned by Melbourne art curator and gallerist Jan Minchin. My work has always had a strong visual aspect to it, owing much to the long-standing partnership with my wife, Heather Betts, herself a painter. Several of my works, such as “Beggars and Angels” and “Night Window” pay direct homage to the influence of Heather’s remarkable paintings on my own creative life.

These new preludes follow this line of creativity, owing much of their inspiration and development to visual stimuli. Whilst conceived as pieces of pure music, the lines, gestures and energies contained within nevertheless owe much of their ultimate shape to imagery.

Some of these came to my attention by traditional means; seeing the National Gallery of Victoria’s extraordinary exhibition “Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art” last year, for example, proved to be an especially inspiring encounter. The magical cartographic works of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri in particular, displaying such an encyclopaedic knowledge of his country, led directly to the second movement, “Topography-Papunya”, in which the music unfolds as if seen from above, taking in more and more detail as it scans and focuses, joining the dots as it were.

Another prelude was inspired simply by browsing through images on the web. The initial idea for the very opening of the piece, an ascending arpeggio over all six strings of Richard’s Violectra – and its subsequent descending counterpart heard somewhat later, reminded me of a rusty, squeaky swing in an abandoned playground. Just entering those two words in a google image search provided a beautifully wistful gallery of possible narratives and imagined sounds. Try it.

But the most striking image that fired my fantasy throughout the entire compositional process was that of Richard standing with the ACO, his exotic electric fiddle under his chin, taking mere breaths of sound and embryonic motivic shapes and transforming them, with the help of this impressive piece of electronics and sound designer Bob Scott at the mixing desk, filling the hall and enticing the orchestra’s manifold responses.

My heartfelt thanks to Richard and Bob for their invaluable contributions to this joyfully collaborative commission, and to Jan Minchin for her belief in the project and the financial support to allow us to realize it.
—Brett Dean

Composer: Brett Dean (October 23, 1961–)
Electric Violin: Richard Tognetti
Orchestra: Australian Chamber Orchestra

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Brett-Dean-Electric-Preludes/57840

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Terry Riley - In C ...on CS2 Infernos bells

Cmaj7 2023-10-01 | definitely the best feature in cs2

...sorry to the minimalist purists for not really following the instructions and cutting out most of it but I'm not insane like jleightcap

For those out of the know, Counter-Strike 2 released last Wednesday with the all-important patch note "Added an extra bell in Inferno". I felt like I had to make something out of that...
For those out of the know in the other direction, Terry Riley's 1964 "In C" is considered to be basically the founding piece of minimalist music, and thus a major influence on the likes of John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Louis Andriessen.

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Mel Bonis - Bourrée, for orchestra (1904/1909)

Cmaj7 2023-09-24 | Composer: Mélanie Hélène "Mel" Bonis (January 21, 1858 – March 18, 1937)
Orchestra: Bucharest Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benoit Fromanger

A little piece from a set of dances with a mysteriously playful mood, beautifully subtly orchestrated

Score available at: imslp.org/wiki/Pavane,_sarabande_et_bourr%C3%A9e_%28Bonis,_Mel%29#For_Orchestra_.28Bonis.29_2
CD recording available at: mel-bonis.com/EN/CD/59/CD-orchestre

Note: At measure 38, the recording bassoon 1 plays E, instead of a D as written (in my edition here and the original Demets edition). Based on the piano version, this should actually be C♯
Note: At 1:41, the horn staff is duplicated. This error is not in the IMSLP version and was accidentally added in preparing the edition for this video which uses fewer staves.
Note: Measure 47 Oboe 1 G♯ should be F♯
These are all fixed in the most recent version on IMSLP.

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Isang Yun - Réak (1966)

Cmaj7 2023-09-10 | 00:00 I - Evocation of Korean ceremonial music beginning with percussion. Orchestra enters with tight clusters in dynamic swells, evocative of the dense harmony and timbres of tradition Korean instruments
03:47 II - Highly ornamented melody is passed between instruments hocket style, invoking the "Yeonum" technique. Bartok pizzicato in the low strings mimic the plucking of the Gayageum (zither)
06:57 III - Thick sound layers form around a central pitch of B
09:56 IV - Elements of the previous sections are combined along with new timbral techniques, pushed by rapid harp clusters

"Réak" refers to the Confucian principle of "proper music" and joins characteristics of traditional Korean ceremonial music with modern Western musical compositional techniques. References to Korean music include the use of tight cluster-based harmony and dynamic swells characteristic of the Saenghwang (Korean mouth organ); "Yeonum" (hocket), in which the melody is split among instruments; and the use of highly ornamented melodic lines.

Citation: Analysis of Isang Yun's "Reak für Orchester" by Kim Sue-Hye

Composer: Isang Yun (윤이상 Yun Isang) (September 17, 1917 – November 3, 1995)
Orchestra: Berlin Deutsches Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stefan Asbury

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Isang-Yun-Reak/1795

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Francisco Valls - Quarter-tone composition (1742)

Cmaj7 2023-08-28 | Composer: Francisco Valls (1665/1671 – February 2, 1747)
Ensemble: Ensemble Schirokko Hamburg directed by Rachel Harris

Enharmonic refers to sub-chromatic intervals, deriving its name from the ancient Greek modes that involved the use of approximately quarter-tone intervals.

Notes from the score:
This is the enharmonic composition which I have offered. I repeat that except with these instruments, played with great care, its use is very difficult. There are, however, some voices and instrumental performers who are so tone deaf that they ordinarily play or sing enharmonically. It is unbearable to listen to them.

Moving on to the enharmonic style, I should say that its use with instruments is impossible, except for strings. The winds cannot play a three quarter sharp which is essential to enharmonic composition. As for voices, P Kircher said in the margin of his "Musurgia" "difficile est humana voce enharmonicum exprimere" [it is difficult to use the voice enharmonically]. Salomon de Caus and other composers are of the same view. I shall give a practical example for strings. This will show how this style may be used. First I will explain how the enharmonic sharp sounds so that people understand how to play it. The chromatic sharp is a full sharp. The enharmonic sharp raises the note by only a quarter of a tone. It is indicated by the following symbol: ×.
Translated notes from:
imslp.org/wiki/Composici%C3%B3n_enarm%C3%B3nica_para_instrumentos_de_arco_%28Valls%2C_Francisco%29

"Composición enarmónica para instrumentos de arco" (Enharmonic composition for string instruments) from "Mapa Armónico Práctico" (Practical Harmonic Map)

(The wind machine at the start is a transition from the previous track, Vivaldi's La Tempesta di Mare RV 570)

Also check out this beautiful piece using quarter tones youtube.com/watch?v=xUPd-Vq6_EQ

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Maurice Ohana - Silenciaire (1969)

Cmaj7 2023-08-07 | 00:00 Slide whistles and string glissandos rise and fall into a explosive percussion hit
01:01 A ritualistic atmosphere as percussions play in free time, strings joining in at 02:32
03:38 A sudden frenzy of strings
05:40 Brooding low strings and ominous bell chimes before mallet percussion cadenzas
08:04 "Aventures: play these 'adventures' in an order predetermined by the chief percussionist" 4: Imposing bell chords interspersed with wooden percussion
09:00 Aventure 2: Whistling string glissandos and subtle percussion
10:08 Aventure 3: Percussion polyrhythms under piercing string chords
11:23 Aventure 1: The percussionists go wild with rapid runs and brash strikes before calming down into...
12:09 A slow meditative section featuring gong, tam-tam, and cymbals, growing into a huge climax at 14:16
15:17 A final frantic flurry of strings

A slash before the note is 1/3 tone sharp; 2 slashes is 2/3 tone sharp.

Composer: Maurice Ohana (12 June 1913 – 13 November 1992)
Orchestra: Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Arturo Tamayo

Fair warning: the page turns in the "libre" free time sections are approximate or just following one line.

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James MacMillan - Percussion Concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992)

Cmaj7 2023-07-31 | 00:00 Introit - Advent. A bold, fanfare-like "overture" in which the soloist presents all the instrument-types used throughout
02:41 Heartbeats. The music melts into the main meat of the first section – music of a more brittle, knottier quality, propelled forward by various pulse rates evoking an ever-changing heartbeat
05:17 Dance - Hocket. Fast "chugging" quavers, irregular rhythmic shifts and the "hocketting" of chords between one side of the orchestra and the other
09:35 Transition: Sequence I. Eerie screaming strings against violently articulated brass and woodwind melodies, before calming down into...
12:08 Gaude, Gaude. Cadenza-like expressivity on the marimba against a floating tranquillity in the orchestra, repeating the plainchant at different speeds like a calm prayer
17:44 Transition: Sequence II. A huge pedal crescendo on E♭ provides a transition to another "hocket" under a virtuoso vibraphone solo.
21:45 The climax of the work presents the plainsong as a chorale followed by the opening fanfares, providing a backdrop for an energetic drum cadenza.

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/James-MacMillan-Veni-Veni-Emmanuel/3051

Composer: James Loy MacMillan (July 16, 1959 –)
Percussion: Evelyn Glennie
Orchestra: Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, a concerto for percussion and orchestra is in one continuous movement and lasts about 25 minutes. Dedicated to my parents, it is based on the Advent plainsong of the same name and was started on the 1st Sunday of Advent 1991 and completed on Easter Sunday 1992. These two liturgical dates are important as will be explained later. The piece can be discussed in two ways. On one level it is a purely abstract work in which all the musical material is drawn from the 15th century French Advent plainchant. On another level it is a musical exploration of the theology behind the Advent message.

Soloist and orchestra converse throughout as two equal partners and a wide range of percussion instruments are used, covering tuned, untuned, skin, metal and wood sounds. Much of the music is fast and, although seamless, can be divided into a five-sectioned arch. It begins with a bold, fanfare-like ‘overture’ in which the soloist presents all the instrument-types used throughout. When the soloist moves to gongs and unpitched metal and wood the music melts into the main meat of the first section – music of a more brittle, knottier quality, propelled forward by various pulse rates evoking an ever-changing heartbeat.

Advancing to drums and carried through a metrical modulation the music is thrown forward into the second section characterised by fast ‘chugging’ quavers, irregular rhythmic shifts and the ‘hocketting’ of chords between one side of the orchestra and the other. Eventually the music winds down to a slow central section which pits cadenza-like expressivity on the marimba against a floating tranquillity in the orchestra which hardly ever rises above ppp. Over and over again the orchestra repeats the four chords which accompany the words ‘Gaude, Gaude’ from the plainsong’s refrain. They are layered in different instrumental combinations and in different speeds evoking a huge distant congregation murmuring a calm prayer in many voices.

A huge pedal crescendo on E♭ provides a transition to section four which reintroduces material from the ‘hocket’ section under a virtuoso vibraphone solo. Gradually one becomes aware of the original tune floating slowly behind all the surface activity. The climax of the work presents the plainsong as a chorale followed by the opening fanfares, providing a backdrop for an energetic drum cadenza. In the final coda the all-pervasive heartbeats are emphatically pounded out on drums and timps as the music reaches an unexpected conclusion.

The heartbeats which permeate the whole piece offer a clue to the wider spiritual priorities behind the work, representing the human presence of Christ. Advent texts proclaim the promised day of liberation from fear, anguish and oppression, and this work is an attempt to mirror this in music, finding its initial inspiration in the following from Luke 21: "There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamour of the ocean and its waves; men dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand".

At the very end of the piece the music takes a liturgical detour from Advent to Easter - right into the Gloria of the Easter Vigil in fact – as if the proclamation of liberation finds embodiment in the Risen Christ.
—James MacMillan

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Claude Vivier - Prologue pour un Marco Polo (1981)

Cmaj7 2023-07-24 | Formed around the harmonic series of the double bass's low E, "Prologue pour un Marco Polo" presents an intoxicatingly captivating sonic landscape.
00:00 Discovery of the word Zipangu (Japan). [Exploration of the harmonic spectrum of the E. (The harmonic 7th/9th chords at 1:36 are so hauntingly beautiful.)]
02:09 Grand chorale and speech of the Sage who has partly understood Polo but is also indifferent.
05:19 Call of Zipangu. Sadness, a land that glimpsed but never attained. [Furtive, jagged melodies around the bass's desperate cries]
06:35 Grand chorale, which from a state of anarchy [violent contrapuntal dynamic swells] returns to a perfect homophony, all of this leading to the Magician’s solo at 09:17. The structure is again untangled.
10:05 A last appeal from Zipangu. [A gorgeous sorrowful Emaj7 as the bass climbs longingly up the harmonic series of E]
10:46 An almost barbarian introduction to 11:59 Solo on the solitude of Marco Polo, superimposed on the amorous supplication of the four voices.
12:46 Slowly the music embroils all this [clarinets and strings descend into wild aleatoric runs] and becomes the state of grace of solitary visionaries.
15:16 Clear and vertiginous visions of the shades of death and obliteration of the being. [Another gorgeous Emaj7 chord, before the haunting tolling of bells]
16:12 Marco Polo today, a conversation, but most importantly some fruits: he is not dead. [A glorious chorale]
17:37 The testament of Marco Polo, a long solo always higher, the voice of God, almost the voice of madness. [Soprano solo over eerie swelling chords]

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Claude-Vivier-Prologue-pour-un-Marco-Polo/47759

A melancholy view of Marco Polo’s tragedy and above all, a meditation on a state of being, that of seeker who is misunderstood: "Prologue pour un Marco Polo" is all of this. A prologue to this mysterious Marco Polo says more about his inner life than about his voyages (...) Through the musical writing, it also becomes a language that guide us toward another: an invented language, which is really that on the general incomprehension against which poor Marco had to struggle (...) As for the musical work, there is a slow development of a monodic moment toward an intervalized moment which then is harmonized, adding harmonic spectra to the intervalized structure which is also illuminated by harmonic spectra.
—Claude Vivier

Composer: Claude Vivier (April 14, 1948 – March 7, 1983)
Ensemble: Asko-Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw

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Einojuhani Rautavaara - On the Last Frontier (1997)

Cmaj7 2023-07-16 | 00:00 A solemn, brooding string introduction blooms into luminous clusters and brilliant arpeggios at 1:19
04:15 Distant and mysterious woodwind melodies prelude the choir entrance at 05:43
07:02 An epic climactic chord before falling away into gentle textures and a series of light-footed solos at 7:52
09:50 A lovely, warm oboe solo over luscious harp and strings
10:46 A suddenly frantic mood pushed by deep arpeggios
12:49 The music steadies into a grand forward progression bursting into...
14:40 Luminous clusters and brilliant arpeggios again, now with stronger orchestral support
16:08 ...falling away into a frightened, panicked mood, before reclaiming form at 17:20
18:39 Stately forward melodies mix with frantic runs leading into...
21:20 The grand climax as the chorus pushes with thick harmonies between huge orchestral arpeggios, before epic Amaj7 chords at 23:41

Score available from Fennica Gehman: https://fennicagehrman.fi/composer/rautavaara-einojuhani/

On the threshold of his seventies, Rautavaara felt that he, too, was approaching the mysterious last frontier and returned to the ending of Poe’s work, which he describes as "a mystical, almost metaphysical fantasy." He explains that, in his composition, "the fascinating closing pages of the novel from the whole. I could not use Poe's text verbatim for this purpose... it had to be reworked somewhat. It became, in the mouths of the chorus, the core and framework of a longer narrative, around and in between which the orchestra weaves its own rich, colorful texture. Because I already knew the performers at the time I composed the work, I was spurred to write a number of instrumental solos. The orchestra's role is to tell the tale in a way that is beyond the scope of words -but perhaps expresses it better than words are able to." from wocomoMUSIC, youtube.com/watch?v=MAYDhlOsHsw

Composer: Einojuhani Rautavaara (October 9, 1928 – July 27, 2016)
Orchestra: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam
Choir: Finnish Philharmonic Choir

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David Moliner - Un Magnetar..., for solo clarinet and ensemble (2022)

Cmaj7 2023-06-18 | 00:00 Magnetar's emergence [exploration of the clarinet's timbres alone and with the resonance of percussion instruments] (4:20 The other players come on stage)
05:34 Penetration in the "unknown" [rapid, frantic runs from around the ensemble]
07:32 Heavenly shadows [subtle, mysterious timbres interspersed with continuing frantic clarinet runs]
10:11 In the "ultraspace" [calm, nearly a jazz ballad, rising to a wild climax at 11:38]
11:59 The Magnetar's hiss [more luscious Dutilleux-esque textures arise]
13:08 The sibylline attack [violent staccato runs interchanged between clarinet and ensemble leading to a grotesque climax at 14:51 featuring "elephant" multiphonics]
16:00 Into the evanescence [thin orchestral textures, while the clarinet takes alluring melodies rife with glissandos]
17:32 Arietta, (dissolution) [a calm, meditative ending, as the clarinet's texture thins out into breaths]

Performance notes: imgur.com/a/K3pEOgE
"Un Magnetar..." is based on a spatial journey. In this, a spatial object called Magnetar is the main source of the work (clarinet solo).
Different states come ahead which transform the Magnetar' s content, (formal and expressive), as well as the rest of players physical activity, until the full players achieve the full metamorphosis. Due to its huge timbral richness as well as its versatility, this work is entirely devoted to the clarinet, the most powerful shadow instrument...
This work is fully conceived towards the Klangkörper concept that Jörg Widmann possesses in his rich musical thinking. Despite the fact that there are few indications of the corporal activity written in the score, Widmann's richness is of such excellence, that implicitly one should think of Jörg when playing this piece in order to achieve a fresh narrativity lace and a powerful-expressive physicality."
The work is naturally dedicated to Jörg Widmann; mentor and friend =)
I also would like to thank Nuria Albella, whose help has been also essential =)

Composer: David Moliner (1991 –)
Ensemble: Plural Ensemble conducted by Fabián Panisello
Clarinetist: Jörg Widmann
Percussionist: David Moliner

@davidmolinerandres
Video made on the authorization of Universal Edition (UE) Vienna and the composer
universaledition.com/david-moliner-7925/works/un-magnetar-magnetische-episoden-32731

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Georg Friedrich Haas - Tria ex Uno, sextett nach Josquin Desprez (2001)

Cmaj7 2023-06-11 | 0:00 I [prolation canon (canon in 3 tempos simultaneously) by Josquin Desprez, orchestrated softly]
1:49 II [warmer orchestration of the canon, as voices are passed between more instruments]
3:42 III [instruments fade in and out in waves]
4:13 [voices begin to meander microtonally, between crushing descending runs on the piano]
5:11 [strident string glisses in tight microtonal clusters, under resonant piano and percussion]
6:02 [overtones of d and f, at first pulsing softly, and gradually more aggressive]
7:28 [warm harmonies and orchestration return, before being pierced by piquant piano chords]
9:20 [soundscapes based on the harmonic series, pressed by eerie triplet ostinatos]

Composer: Georg Friedrich Haas (August 16, 1953 –)
Ensemble: Callithumpian Consort conducted by Stephen Drury youtu.be/Bh96VaEuEzQ
Flute: Rachel Beetz
Clarinet: Rane Moore
Violin: Lilit Hartunian
Cello: David Russell
Percussion: Mike Williams
Piano: Yukiko Takagi

Tria ex Uno, sextett nach Josquin Desprez

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Delicious chromaticism from Monteverdi 😋 (Laudate Dominum, SV 272)

Cmaj7 2023-06-04 | Watch the whole score video for Claudio Monteverdi's Laudate Dominum, SV 272 here: youtu.be/CWz1-eK-WeU

Chrous: I Fagiolini directed by Robert Hollingworth
Ensemble: The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble

Claudio Monteverdi - Laudate Dominum, SV 272 (1641)

Cmaj7 2023-06-04 | 0:00 A spritely, joyful melody
0:28 A grand chorale interrupts before returning to spritely melodies
1:08 Bitter chromatic descents begin to take over, 1:35, 1:50
2:28 A sweet, calm melody
3:44 A final glorious chorale

Composer: Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized May 15, 1567 – November 29, 1643)
Chrous: I Fagiolini directed by Robert Hollingworth
Ensemble: The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble

From Selva morale e spirituale
Full title: Laudate dominum omnes gentes Primo a 5 voci concertato con due violini & un choro a quattro voci qual potrasi e cantare e sonare co quattro viole o Tromboni & anco lasciare se acadesse il bisogno (First "Laudate dominum omnes gentes" for 5 solo voices with two violins & a four-voice choir which can be sung and played with four violas or trombones or left out if the need arises)
Score available here: cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Laudate_Dominum_omnes_gentes,_SV_272_%28Claudio_Monteverdi%29

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Frederick Delius - Songs of Farewell (1930)

Cmaj7 2023-05-28 | Delius' final composition, an absolutely gorgeous and poignant farewell
00:00 I - "How sweet the silent backward tracings!" A beautifully warm introduction, tempered by bittersweet chromaticism [amazing resolution at 3:00], grows steadily into...
03:13 An energetic climax before glowing final chords at 3:51
04:33 II - "I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak" A broad, grand cello melody opens the movement alone. Horns, bassoons, and strings enter to color the melody
06:00 The chorus enters with a beautiful simple chorale, before an agitated climax at 7:14
09:13 III - "Passage to you! O secret of the earth and sky!" Gentle Copland-esque strings open into...
10:09 A brisk fanfare (10:50)
12:46 IV - "Joy, shipmate, joy!" A joyous march, ever tinged with Delius' nervous chromaticism
14:16 V - "Now finalè to the shore" A heavy sad chorale is reclaimed by a sense of peace (16:20)
16:43 A sweet wavelike cello ostinato brings the piece to a close on a gorgeous sixth chord (17:42)

Composer: Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (January 29, 1862 – June 10, 1934)
Orchestra: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox
Choruses: Waynflete Singers, Southern Voices, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus

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Sid Richardson - Astrolabe (2014)

Cmaj7 2023-05-21 | 0:00 Largo misterioso [an evocative, atmospheric introduction]
1:28 Adagio, Solemn [harsh, menacing chords and tremolos drive the music towards...]
2:02 Ritualistic [paganistic chanting of star names]
2:29 Adagio misterioso [a frantic flute solo, over ghostly chords]
2:58 Allegro moderato con moto [a playful mood as fleeting runs are interspersed with piquant strikes] (4:26) Ritualistic
4:43 Subdued [heavy bell chords demarcate furtive lines] (5:42) Intensifying [as the flute takes a manic solo]
6:38 Largo misterioso [the music suddenly becomes quiet and mysterious]
7:17 Adagio agitato [ghostly chords and flute solo return, but now pushed by restless tremolos]
7:50 Ritualistic (8:13) Solemn [a final climactic ritual and violent push of tremolos]
8:42 Largo, Still [lucent, thin timbres and whispers bring a calm yet unsettling ending]

The astrolabe is an astronomical device used to solve problems relating to time and the position of the celestial bodies in the sky. It was the primary astronomical education tool of ancient times, and as such astrolabes were fashioned by various cultures around the world for both scientific and astrological purposes. Aesthetically, the astrolabe was regarded as a symbol of the universe and as an object of great beauty. "Astrolabe" seeks to interpret the mystical and scientific properties of the device and to consider the implications of time and positioning in musical space. Over the course of the work, several disparate musical elements are combined in new ways, each time with shifts in texture and mood, in much the same way as the moving components of the astrolabe are manipulated to solve for solutions to astronomical problems. The mystical and supernatural properties of the astrolabe, which date back to its early history as an instrument of astrology and divination, are reflected in musical passages incorporating the players’ voices. The text is compiled out of three sources: star names from constellations of the zodiac, excerpts from Geoffrey Chaucer’s "Treatise on the Astrolabe," and Walt Whitman’s poem “Kosmos.”
—Sid Richardson

Composer: Sid Richardson (1987 –)
http://sidrichardsonmusic.com soundcloud.com/sid-richardson
Ensemble: Da Capo Chamber Players
Flute: Patricia Spencer
Clarinets: Meighan Stoops
Violin: Curtis Macomber
Cello: Jay Campbell
Piano: Stephen Beck (guest)
Percussion: Michael Lipsey (guest)

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Claire Delbos-Messiaen - Lâme en bourgeon (1937)

Cmaj7 2023-05-14 | 00:00 I - Dors (Sleep) [a lovely and sweet lullaby]
01:31 II - Mon cœur revient à son printemps (My heart returns to its springtime) [light and playful]
03:30 III - Je suis là (I am there) [tender yet ominous mood created by prominent tritones]
06:03 IV - Te voilà hors de l'alvéole (Here you are, out of the honeycomb) [feelings of emptiness but also of happiness (as the child is born)]
09:02 V - Je savais que ce serait toi (I knew it would be you) [a brighter mood with free rhythms and quickly changing tempos]
10:39 VI - Maintenant, il est né (Now, he is born) [sorrowful yet sweet, reminiscences of Debussy's "Spleen"]
12:26 VII - Te voilà, mon petit amant (Here you are, my little lover) [nervous yet exotically playful mood from highly ornamented piano lines]
16:29 VIII - Ai-je pu t'appeler de l'ombre (Could I have called you from the shadows) [austere, ominous monodies in solo voice and solo piano]

Composer: Louise-Justine Messiaen (Claire Delbos) (November 2, 1906 – April 22, 1959)
Soprano: Liv Elise Nordskog
Pianist: Signe Bakke

"L'âme en bourgeon" was composed when Delbos was pregnant with her and Olivier Messiaen's son. A setting of poems by Cécile Sauvage, Messiaen's mother, it was written in close collaboration with Messiaen's "Poèmes pour Mi" and premiered in the same concert.

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Charles Ives - Robert Browning Overture (1912)

Cmaj7 2023-05-07 | 00:00 Adagio maestoso - Largo: eerie quiet strings over gently rumbling timpani
01:59 Woodwinds take over with a sorrowful melody, but moments of energy come out
03:10 Allegro con spirito: A vigorous march full of polyrhythms and polytonality (6:25), leading to a strident climax at 7:46
08:04 A sweet, tender chorale emerges, but which slowly becomes uncanny (11:09, 13:16, 15:10)
16:23 The furious march repeats
20:21 A heavy oppressive transition into...
21:25 A wild fugal finale

Composer: Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954)
Orchestra: The Gulbenkian Orchestra conducted by Michel Swierczewski

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François Couperin - Regina coeli lætare

Cmaj7 2023-04-30 | An absolute joy of a piece both to listen to and to play, especially the Gayement
0:00 Regina coeli lætare
1:20 Récitatif [lovely, tender and sweet]
1:51 Gayement [simply bursting with joy]

Composer: François Couperin "le Grand" (November 10, 1668 – September 11, 1733)
Sopranos: Delia Agúndez and Magdalena Padilla Olivares
Ensemble: La Bellemont

Couperin playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyw-Me-kQIeBA8MfwCbuvvA3-AQqGbU3I
Score available on IMSLP: imslp.org/wiki/Regina_coeli_laetare_%28Couperin%2C_Fran%C3%A7ois%29
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Elijah Daniel Smith - Wraith Weight (2021)

Cmaj7 2023-04-23 | A beautifully iridescent piece, which I had the immense pleasure of hearing in person
0:00 A pastoral melody becomes enveloped in waves of microtonal chords and string harmonics
1:37 A luminous string melody rises out of the blur before being enveloped as well
3:03 Tight microtonal counterpoint creates a hauntingly beautiful atmosphere
4:39 Afterimages of earlier elements of the piece show on the fog of sound
5:33 Huge brass calls pierce through the fog before finally dying away

Wraith Weight explores the idea of sonic afterimages by blurring and distorting pitch centers, rhythmic centers, and varying levels of harmonic clarity, or lack thereof. The work is inspired by the many types of subject disclarity possible in visual arts, primarily photography and film. Whether it's motion blur, depth of field, or simply an out-of-focus image, there are multiple shades of obscurity that can be employed for deliberate effect. Wraith Weight is governed by the simple question of "What would it sound like if we applied some of those ideas to pitch, harmony, and rhythm?"
—Elijah Daniel Smith

Composer: Elijah Daniel Smith (1995 –) elijahdanielsmith.com
Orchestra: Peabody Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joseph Young

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Duke Ellington - Three Black Kings (1974)

Cmaj7 2023-04-16 | 0:00 King of the Magi. A vigorous percussive drive
1:36 An exotic grandiose theme takes over (2:24) (2:54) (3:35)
4:05 The percussive drive returns, but with wilder energy

5:13 King Solomon. A mysterious introduction before...
5:25 A luscious, soulful string melody and trumpet solo
6:51 An upbeat bossa nova, soon returning to (7:25) sultry strings with renewed soul
8:15 A cool swing beat under solo tenor sax
10:01 Double speed!
10:54, 11:13 Sweet strings and trumpet bookend the movement

12:36 Martin Luther King. A joyful gospel eulogy featuring solo tenor sax
16:25 A soaring climax (17:39)

Score available from Schirmer: issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/three_black_kings_reduc_peress_2769

Composer: Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)
Arranger: Maurice Peress
Orchestra: American Composers Orchestra conducted by Maurice Peress

(King of the Magi sounds remarkably like Zhu Jian'er)

Collaboration, one might say, is the essence of jazz. Even Ellington’s Three Black Kings, his final composition, proves the point in its own way. Ellington had nearly completed the piece before he died. But he rarely wrote the final notes of a composition until the day of the premiere, leaving his son Mercer, a successful bandleader and composer in his own right, to guess how it should ultimately be completed. The great composer and arranger Luther Henderson orchestrated a version that Mercer premiered at a tribute concert for his father in 1976 – where First Lady Betty Ford gave the downbeat. Alvin Ailey choreographed a ballet to accompany the piece, which his troupe performed throughout the 1976/77 season. And Ellington’s longtime friend Maurice Peress, an esteemed conductor, eventually rescored it for symphony orchestra. It took many hands to create the piece as we know it today.

Intended (in Mercer’s words) as a “eulogy for Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Three Black Kings continues Ellington’s series of narrative pieces on a grand symphonic scale – a series that includes Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), Harlem (1950), and Night Creature (1955). Traversing centuries, each movement captures the psychological depth of its respective subject. The first, depicting King Balthazar (the black king of the Nativity), features propulsive percussion sounds that explode into ravishing, exotic melodies in the strings. The episodic second, which fluctuates between sultry strings accompanied by harp and upbeat passages reminiscent of Ellington’s jazz orchestra, evokes King Solomon’s taste for love more than his fabled wisdom. The gospel-inflected third, complete with subtle tambourine backbeats, is a fitting tribute to the Reverend Doctor King himself – a man who, as Nina Simone put it in her own music eulogy, “had seen the mountaintop, and knew he could not stop, always living with the threat of death ahead.” — Douglas Shadle
laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/4818/three-black-kings

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John Adams - Harmonium (1981)

Cmaj7 2023-04-09 | 0:00 1. Negative Love. A warm, pulsating cluster of sound slowly builds
2:31 The chorus takes up a sweet soft melody under luminous string harmonics, growing to an epic climax at 4:11
4:16 A more optimistic section, traveling through several "harmonic gates"
5:24, 6:08 Frantic tremolos and arpeggios behind a relentless driving chorus
8:01 An agitated crescendo into a huge climax at 8:54 before...
9:08 ...a suddenly calm ending with mellow horns and bright ostinatos

10:29 2. Because I Could Not Stop for Death. Bittersweet clusters underline a somber choral melody
12:58 The sound warms up as the chorus takes up a light, free-floating melody
14:28 A strong sense of nostalgia imbues the music (16:22, 17:28 glowingly beautiful timbre and harmony here)
18:04 The bitter sound of the beginning of the movement returns (19:39 the cowbells and chorus here create such a wonderful soundscape)
20:15 A grand accelerando and crescendo into...

22:41 3. Wild Nights. (self-explanatory)
24:49 Highly agitated
25:40, 26:21 An ecstasy of trombone glissandos pushes towards a very wild climax
26:59, 27:44 Gentle soothing waves of sound bring a comforting end

Composer: John Coolidge Adams (February 15, 1947 – )
Orchestra: San Francisco Symphony conducted by John Adams
Chorus: San Francisco Symphony Chorus directed by Vance George
Nonesuch

Score available from Associated Music Publishers: issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/harmonium_23705

earbox.com/harmonium
Harmonium (1980) and Shaker Loops (1978) represent my first mature statements in a language that was born out of my initial exposure to Minimalism. From the very start my own brand of Minimalism began to push the envelope. What was orderly and patiently evolving in the works of Reich or Glass was in my works already subject to violent changes in gesture and mood...

Harmonium was composed in 1980 in a small studio on the third floor of an old Victorian house in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Those of my friends who knew both the room and the piece of music were amused that a piece of such spaciousness should emerge from such cramped quarters. The title of the work was all that survived from my initial intention to set poems from Wallace Stevens’s collection of the same name. After I realized that Stevens’s language and rhythmic sense was not my own, I cast far and wide for a text to satisfy a musical image that I had in mind. That image was one of human voices–many of them–riding upon waves of rippling sound. Ultimately I settled on three poems of transcendental vision. “Negative Love” by John Donne examines the qualities of various forms of love, ascending in the manner of Plato’s Symposium, from the carnal to the divine. I viewed this “ascent” as a kind of vector, having both velocity and direction. Musically, this meant a formal shape that began with a single, pulsing note (a D above middle C) that, by the process of accretion, becomes a tone cluster, then a chord, and eventually a huge, calmly rippling current of sound that takes on energy and mass until it eventually crests on an immense cataract of sound some ten minutes later. To date, I still consider “Negative Love” one of the most satisfying architectural experiments in all my work.

The two Dickinson poems show the polar opposites of her poetic voice. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is the intimate, hushed Dickinson, whose beyond-the-grave monologue is a sequence of images from a short life, a kind of pastoral elegy expressed through the lens of a slow-motion camera. Like Aaron Copland before me, I unknowingly set the bowdlerized version of the original, being unaware at the time that the poet’s original version differed significantly in syntax from the more smoothed-out, conventional version made by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Following the last palpitations of the slow movement the music enters a transition section, a kind of bardo stage between the end of one life and the beginning of a new one. Again, as in “Negative Love,” the music gradually assumes weight, force and speed until it is hurled headlong into the bright, vibrant clangor of “Wild Nights.” Here is the other side of Emily Dickinson, saturated with an intoxicated, ecstatic, pressing urge to dissolve herself in some private and unknowable union of eros and death. The metaphors, at once violent and sexually hypercharged, play upon the image of a “heart in port”, secure and out of danger from the wild storm-tossed sea. So much has been written about Emily Dickinson, and her mysterious persona has been subjected to so much speculative analysis, that it is always a shock to encounter these texts alone and away from any kind of exegesis.

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Isang Yun - Violin Concerto No. 1 (1981)

Cmaj7 2023-03-21 | A sublimely beautiful work of Isang Yun's late "Taoist" style
00:00 I ("a challenge") [1:50 the luminous orchestration under the oboe imitating the Korean "piri" is amazing]
13:28 II - Adagio ("elegy and lamentation") [a haunting elegy with the solo taking on a "sijo" singing style]
26:21 III ("resignation, emancipation, and liberation") [a vigorous finale with the solo freeing itself from the orchestra with numerous virtuosic passages]
34:05 Cadenza

Composer: Isang Yun (윤이상 Yun Isang) (September 17, 1917 – November 3, 1995)
Violinist: Akiko Tatsumi
Orchestra: Frankfurt Radio Symphony conducted by Zdeněk Mácal

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/pages/cr/catalogue/cat_detail?=&musicid=15830

Isang Yun's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1, written as a commission for the Hessischer Rundfunk, was composed in the summer months of 1981. In its clearly delineated three-part form, it corresponds to the classical-romantic violin concerto. A relatively rapid opening movement is followed by a restrained, decidedly elegiac middle movement, which leads directly attacca into the final movement and brings the work to a close with a cadenza by the solo violin and a large-scale climax.

The violin part, while written in the spirit of the traditional concerto for a virtuoso instrument that contrasts with the orchestra, especially in the final movement, relinquishes its clearly dominant function in the first two movements. It is more integrated into the orchestral movement in that it prepares its course, guides the motion forward, rather than schematically emerging only where the orchestra merely accompanies and holding back where the orchestra has significant things to say. The violin thus dialogues with the orchestra and does not oppose it as in the traditional concerto. In the composer's image, the violin disappears into the orchestral stream and reappears from it. Just as the relationship between the solo instrument and the tutti is different from that in the tradition, the difference in the vocal conception of the solo violin also becomes apparent. In the solo part of the classical-romantic concerto, thematically bound melodic lines alternate with free passagework. Yun's music, on the other hand, does not know the rigid separation of thematically substantial tone and figuration. The play-arounds, the rhapsodic upswings that lead to the "single tone" are as central as the latter, because it draws its life only from the impulsively increasing, ascending gestures.

The differentiation of the relationship between solo and tutti, thematic line and seemingly improvisatory phrases corresponds to one in the "thematic" conception of the violin concerto. The three movements are not only held together by contrasting characters, but are linked to each other by elements that run through all the movements. Thus, sound types are indicated in the first movement, taken up by the second, and continued and heightened by the third: Standing sounds expand into static, but in themselves moving sound fields; individual ascending gestures condense into massive outbursts. This procedure of "thematic" associations is not limited to the violin concerto, however. As in the elegy of the second movement, it also refers to earlier works, to the mourning of the orchestral piece "Exemplum" from 1980, whose darkened low brass sounds are recalled here in the violin concerto.
—Martin Zenck

Description adapted from Yun Jeong Kim's "Isang Yun’s Violin Concerto No.1 (1981): A Fusion of Eastern and Western Styles, and the Influence of Taoism"

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Mel Bonis - Flute Sonata (1904)

Cmaj7 2023-03-14 | Composer: Mélanie Hélène "Mel" Bonis (January 21, 1858 – March 18, 1937)
Flute: Michel Moragues
Piano: Kyoko Nojima

00:00 Andantino con moto
05:08 Scherzo - Vivace
07:03 Adagio [a really beautiful Debussy-esque movement]
12:44 Finale - Moderato

Happy pi day

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Alberto Ginastera - Iubilum, Symphonic Celebration (1980)

Cmaj7 2023-03-07 | Composer: Alberto Ginastera (April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983)
Orchestra: Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Arturo Tamayo

0:00 Fanfare [a wild, impertinent fanfare, finally coming together into an exuberant 4:02]
4:15 Chorale [a haunting chorale traded between strings, brass, and woodwinds, eventually joining to a sweet ending chord]
9:31 Finale [a boisterous, rhythmic finale, "culminating in the whole orchestra bursting into the theme of 'Laudate Dominum de Caelis. Alleluia'"]

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Alberto-Ginastera-Iubilum/5296

Iubilum was composed during the winter 1979-80 in Geneva. It was commissioned by the Directors of the Teatro Colón in celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the founding of the city of Buenos Aires. The premiere took place in Buenos Aires on the 12th of April 1980 with the orchestra of the Teatro Colón conducted by Bruno D'Astoli.

My original thought was to write a Fanfare, but as the work developed in my mind I felt that a tripartite form with the duration of an overture was more appropriate. Thus Iubilum was composed, a work in three movements entitled Fanfare, Chorale, and Finale.

Fanfare is the first movement, in which the brass instruments prevail with both solemnity and joyfulness, in accordance with the spirit of the occasion.

Chorale is a slow movement, the theme of which is successively revealed by the muted strings, the brass, and the woodwinds as separate instrumental choirs that are eventually united.

The Finale, a movement of compelling rhythm, is based on a phrase that appears in 'ritornello ostinato' in various combinations of instruments, culminating in the whole orchestra bursting into the theme of "Laudate Dominum de Caelis. Alleluia."

This final sequence, together with the theme, Kechua with which Iubilum starts, symbolizes the character and eternity of the city of my birth, Buenos Aires.

—Alberto Ginastera

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J.S. Bach - BWV 129 Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott (1727)

Cmaj7 2023-02-28 | Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (March 31, 1685 – July 28, 1750)
Orchestra: The English Baroque Soloists conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Bass: Peter Harvey
Soprano: Ruth Holton
Alto: Paul Agnew
Chorus: The Monteverdi Choir

00:00 Chorus
03:47 Aria, bass solo
07:23 Aria, soprano solo
12:18 Aria, alto solo
17:11 Chorale

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Lili Boulanger - Soir sur la plaine (1913)

Cmaj7 2023-02-21 | Composer: Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (August 21, 1893 – March 15 , 1918)
Chorus: Orpheus Vokalensemble conducted by Michael Alber
Pianist: Antonii Baryshevskyi

0:00 Soprano solo over glowing piano tremolos
0:59 Choir enters singing lush chromatic chords
3:16 Soprano and tenor trade solos while the piano takes up its own melodies (even a bit jazzy at 3:38)
4:18 Women's voices enter, creating a mysterious haunting atmosphere (5:18 soprano solo)
6:08 Full choir enters and slowly builds in intensity until an absolutely sublime climax at 6:49
7:41 Sweet and calm solos as the piece fades away into a hum

Boulanger playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyw-Me-kQIeDHcXTi91wjta0KajCeocE4
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Louis Andriessen - Tapdance, percussion concerto (2013)

Cmaj7 2023-02-14 | Composer: Louis Joseph Andriessen (June 6, 1939 – July 1, 2021)
Percussion Soloist: Dominique Vleeshouwers
Orchestra: Asko|Schönberg and Kölner Philharmonie conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw

00:00 A calm melancholy introduction
00:59 ...briefly interrupted by rude brass
02:07 A big band dance begins (Señor Blues)
02:58 Solo taptable enters as the dance picks up into a Charleston (3:20)
05:27 A highly syncopated bassline drives a dissonant melody
06:34 The dance dies down into a quiet meditative section (7:18) Solo marimba enters
09:40 The orchestra joins the solo marimba in a savage, almost-mocking imitation
10:33 The orchestra melts away into a dirge, solo timpani over drawn-out dissonances
13:23 Señor Blues returns in epic form before falling away into the dirge again

Score available from Boosey and Hawkes: boosey.com/cr/music/Louis-Andriessen-Tapdance/54776
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Maki Ishii - east·green·spring, for recorder (1991)

Cmaj7 2023-02-07 | Composer: Maki Ishii (石井眞木 Ishii Maki) (May 28, 1936 – April 8, 2003)
Recorder Player: Gudula Rosa

0:00 A meditative chant reminiscent of shakuhachi
1:52 The chant becomes interspersed with quiet fragments
4:07 The fragments become more agitated climaxing at 5:48
6:11 Rapid flurries of notes and "key tapping sounds"
7:37 Explosives bursts of sound over random fingerings
8:31 A return to the meditative chant
9:25 A final reminder of the previous section before a calm ending

tenor-recorder piece east・green・spring
テノール・リコーダー曲　東・緑・春

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