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ID: CC2004
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: OboeThe CD booklet contains an interview with Han de Vries (printed in English, French and German), in which he talks about
all the works on the CD. There are photos of him throughout his career, and of his extensive instrument collection.
Jeremy Polmear talks to Han de Vries about two of the concertos on the CD:
BACH CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND OBOE:
JP: Am I right in thinking that this recording has not been issued commercially before?
H de V: Yes, it was commissioned by a major Dutch bank - the Verenigde Spaarbank - for its employees. This bank is a good sponsor of the arts as well as sport, and I am glad that one of its products is coming out into the wider world.
JP: And you had no conductor; how did you work out the interpretation?
H de V: The Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra is made up of the best players in the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and when I played with that orchestra Jaap van Zweden the violin soloist was the leader, and they are wonderful musicians who have worked with Harnoncourt, with Chailly. So the way to approach this music was very clear to us.
JP: By 1986 when you made this recording, you had played Baroque oboe for many years, but here you are playing Baroque music on the modern oboe. Were you influenced by baroque practices?
H de V: Yes of course, and I've been playing Baroque instruments since I was 28. But to play in the Baroque style on the modern oboe, with little or no vibrato, would sound cold and unfeeling. I also have a loyalty to my teachers, to the style of the Concertgebouw, to the musicians I admire, and to the other players. I don't want to be an island of 'I am right'. I want to be somebody who communicates with other musicians, and to the ears of the audience; if I have the joy of being surrounded by very good musicians then I feel I am at my best.
ANDRIESSEN, ANACHRONIE II ('furniture music'):
JP: Let me start by asking you not about the music, but about the words. There seems to be what sounds like railway announcements at the beginning, at the end, and a bit in the middle of this concerto, and as a non Dutch speaker I must ask you - what is the gentleman saying, and does it matter?
H de V: It doesn't matter. In the score there is written a part for Radio. So it can start witrh a weather forecast, or anything. And then the music is a tapestry of quotations, and crazy humouristic, or agressive moments. It starts like Michel Legrand. Then we get a quasi Vivaldi oboe concerto, then an incredible crazy cadenza that ends with the soloist becoming totally insane. Then comes a sort of funeral march of drunken horns. This piece comes from 1969 where all music was quoting others, with bits of Stravinsky and everything mixed upside-down; it is a reaction against so-called 'beautiful music'. Andriessen said to use no vibrato. Sometimes I couldn't resist it, because I thought 'this is too much, too long, too ugly'.
JP: Did you commission the piece?
H de V: I asked him to write an oboe concerto, but the ideas are all his; and he never asked me whether what he had written was possible or impossible to play. In the cadenza he wanted a sort of shawm sound - he actually said 'like a bagpipe' - and I must say it should have been much more agressive and ugly, but there I felt I had to fight for my oboe, and not destroy the ears of my listeners.
JP: But I couldn't help noticing when you were listening to it, the part that amused you most of all was the bit in the cadenza where you honk on low and high notes. Why is that so much fun to hear?
H de V: Yes, because that's the utmost ugly playing, it's leaving behind everything that is beautiful on an oboe - as if a drunken man picks it up and tries to play it. And I laughed because I had to give up all the beauty I always worked for in my life. © 2002 Han de Vries and Jeremy Polmear |
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ID: CC2015
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: OboeThe 24-page CD booklet has a 6,000 word programme note in English, with a description of the works, the performers, and many photographs.
Oboe+' brings together a group of works for oboe that, with the exception of Berio’s Sequenza VII, have not been recorded before. Sequenza VII was written at the end of the 1960s, a time that had seen a great deal of experimentation with composers exploring the wide range of new sounds available. The Sequenza is an exceptional work that brings together many of the sounds and techniques of the period and integrates them into a work of extraordinary beauty and power. Alongside the development of new sounds and extended techniques came music that demanded from the performer a great deal technically, musically and emotionally. The other works recorded here are fine examples of music from this genre. The ‘new sounds’ can be divided into different categories: Firstly there are the sounds that are easy to make on the instrument. The only example on this CD is the use of key-clicks - this is simply produced by tapping the keys of the instrument hard enough to make a noise. An obvious example of this on the CD can be heard in Argrophylax at 5:10 or 16:18. In the second example the sound is also amplified. Secondly, there are the new sounds that are an extension of techniques that already exist: double, triple and flutter tonguing, range extension and quarter tones. A combination of double and triple tonguing can be heard in Argrophylax at 9:20, while flutter tonguing can be heard in Ausgangspunkte at 2:9. The extension of the range can be heard in Ausgangspunkte at 6:20. Quarter tones are used extensively in many of the works, but a particularly fine example can be found in Pavasiya at 4:17. Sequenza VII uses a few microtonal trills an example of which can be heard at 1:14. Thirdly, sounds that take the oboe into new territory: multiphonics. The performer, through a careful use of exotic fingerings and careful control of the embouchure, creates several pitches simultaneously. Every work on the CD uses these sounds often in combination with other techniques. Recoil uses multiphonics extensively from the opening bar while in Sequenza VII the multiphonics are almost ‘ghost like’ at 6:50. You can also find examples of trilling between different multiphonics in Ausgangspunkte at 10:06. Circular breathing, the technique which allows oboists to maintain very long phrases without seemingly taking a breath is also used - the most obvious example can be found in ‘…sting of the bee…’ One of the striking feature of the music on the CD is the way in which the composers are thinking about and writing for the instrument, often creating a sound world that many would not relate easily to the traditions of the oboe. In a masterclass a few years ago I was demonstrating the highest notes of the instrument and was told that it 'didn’t sound like an oboe’. A better comment would have been ‘I have never heard an oboe sound like that before’. While the other composers on the CD may not necessarily point to Berio as an influence in their work, the Sequenza is a good starting point for music that explores some of the most technically challenging music in the repertoire. Berio had a great interest in virtuosity, which is expressed and explored in his series of Sequenzas. He emphasises, however, that this virtuosity is not simply that of fast fingers but a virtuosity of the intellect as well. Similar statements could be made about the other works on this CD. This is music that demands a great deal of listener and performer alike. It is virtuoso music in the sense that there are many notes and great technical challenges, but unlike much music that could be placed under the banner of ‘virtuoso’, this music is neither frivolous nor is it easy listening. There is great passion here, focused intensity, intellectual depth, it is music that is exuberant, moving and challenging. Michael Finnissy talks in his programme note for Pavasiya of stretching the ‘virtuosic limits of the oboe(s) to the utmost’. This statement could equally be applied at different levels to the other works on this CD, each of which stretches not only the instrument but also the performer. During the course of these works you will hear most of the significant technical developments that have taken place in recent years. One of the aims I had in the recording was to maintain the physical nature of this music. An essential aspect of a number of these works is that they live on the edge of being unplayable. In live performance things do go wrong, notes are missed, the performer can sound as if he/she is struggling to play the works. In this recording I have tried to maintain this quality by not editing out some of the struggles and obvious areas where I find the works technically challenging. The CD opens with one of my solo improvisations. Most of my recitals include improvisation not only in works that demand it, but also improvisations that I myself have developed over a period of time. Improvisation in the ‘classical’ world is seen usually to be the domain of the organist or of the expert baroque specialist, all of which I welcome. In my case however I perform solo (and sometimes duo/trio) improvisations to which I give names. Each improvisation has elements that I wish to explore. These can be technical ideas, formal ideas, pitch ideas etc, and the music is frequently a mixture of many different elements. But improvisation does not stop here. Many of the works on the CD have some elements of improvisation. The Berio asks for an improvisatory approach to the placing of some of the pitches within a very strict framework - the performer’s response to the written text is a vital part of the performance of this work. Young’s work also has a great deal of improvisation both in terms of choice of pitches and the pacing of the work through to the response to the computer’s input. copyright 2006 Christopher Redgate |
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ID: GD269
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: PianoRecorded in Auditorio de Las Rozas, Madrid, 23 and 24 April 2001
Vesko Eschkenazy (violin) and Ludmil Angelov (piano) began performing as duo in 1995. Both were born in Bulgaria, in the families of musicians, and both have graduated from the Bulgarian State Academy of Music in Sofia. Ludmil Angelov has studied with the pianist Konstantin Stankovich, former assistant of the legendary Nadia Boulanger, while Vesko Eschkenazy furthered his studies in the class of Prof. Yfrah Neaman. Both are winners of prestigious international competitions and have performed as soloists of European famous orchestras. They have given concerts in many countries in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Currently Mr. Eschkenazy is concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Holland), and Mr. Angelov is Artistic Director of Toledo International Music Festival. Ludmil Angelov's integral recording of Chopin's rondos and variations for a CD released by Gega New was awarded in 2000 the Grand Prix du Disque Chopin by the International Chopin Institute of Warsaw. The present program features Russian music of the 20th c. and more specifically composers whose works are an example of performer's art. Sergei Prokofiev's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in D major op. 94 bis is a transcription of a flute sonata dating from a year earlier. The violin version was revised by the composer together with David Oistrakh and was first performed in 1944. Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major op. 134 (1968) by Dmitri Shostakovich is also associated with David Oistrakh. The composer wrote it for the famous Russian violinist's 60th anniversary. Rodion Shchedrin's Humoresque and In Imitation of Albeniz are parts of four pieces for piano, where motifs from his ballet The Little Hump-Backed Horse (Konyok-gorbunok) are used. The transcription for violin and piano is by the famous Russian violinist and music pedagogue Dmitry Tziganov. |
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ID: IFO00322
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Organ Collection
Subcollection: OrganBenoraya Concert Hall, Seattle Washington (USA); 2000: 83/IV/P.
1 - 3 - M.-B. Dufourcet, organ / Seattle Symphony - G. Schwarz, conductor
4 - 6 - M. Delorme, violin / Ensemble Instrumental Vibrations - N. Simon, conductor |
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ID: CLAVES509312
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: Violin |
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ID: CDS1070-2
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
World Premiere Recording
Subcollection: ViolinHallén was a true Wagnerian -but most of his works are or a rather more intimate scale. Gustaf Wasa may have been a king of war or unrest in Sweden but the suite that comes from a play is more subdued and peaceful. The other pieces are also rather intimate -and Hallén's orchestration is very skillful and personal. The opening piece, Romanze, betrays a debt to Hallén's teacher Reinecke. |
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ID: ART177
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: Piano |
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