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ID: QTZ2028
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Instrumental
Subcollection: PianoWe are proud to present the Gould Piano Trio's second recordings for Quartz - World premiere recordings of Robert Fuchs' first two piano trios. Robert Fuchs was a major (although currently undervalued) composer of the 19th Century and a contemporary of Brahms who was a major influence on many other composers, including Mahler, Sibelius, Wolf and Zemlinsky. |
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ID: QTZ2027
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Instrumental
Subcollection: ViolaWorld Premiere recordings of transcriptions for unaccompanied viola by J S Bach performed by Robin Ireland, formerly viola player with the internationally celebrated Lindsay Quartet for over 20 years. |
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ID: QTZ2025
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Jazz and Blues
Subcollection: SaxophoneExperimenting, exploring and creating new music for percussion and saxophone. The duo was formed in 1998. Sand Dancer is its debut CD recording and is an intimate reflection of both Dave and Andy's musical experiences. Ranging from the free improvisations of As it Happened to arrangements of jazz standards Django, My One & Only Love, and Moanin through to original compositions such as Otria, Sand Dancer and The Light That Falls, the duo display musical versatility, empathy and honesty. |
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ID: QTZ2021
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: ViolinThree of the greatest late Romantic violin sonatas, including the comparatively little-performed Delius Sonata alongside two high-points of French romanticism and impressionism by Franck and Ravel. Performed here by one of the most acclaimed duos on the international concert stage |
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ID: QTZ2020
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Instrumental
Subcollection: Piano and SaxophoneAn outstanding album featuring the internationally celebrated saxophone virtuoso, Rob Buckland. Towards The Light features original compositions by Andy Scott, Takashi Yoshimatsu, Nikki Iles and Roy Powell as well as transcriptions of pieces by the great jazz pianist Chick Corea and the composer Graham Fitkin. As Rob says in his sleeve notes: "There are no styles of music anymore; there is simply music". |
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ID: QTZ2018
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: Voices and OrchestraWorld Premiere recording of Richard Blackford's acclaimed new secular oratorio based on songs, poems and recordings from countries around the world where issues of exile and freedom are dominant themes. |
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ID: QTZ2016
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: ViolinThis is the sparkling debut CD from the accalaimed winner of the 2004 Uralsk International Violin Competition. This colourful and varied recital includes sensational virtuoso masterpieces by Wieniawski and Ysaye as well as the delicately beautiful To The Air of Time by contemporary Japanese composer Isao Matsushita. The recital opens with Dvorak's tender and intimate, folk-influenced Sonatina.
Atsuko Sahara appears here with the celebrated pianist, John Lenehan.
Violin Recital
The second Uralsk International Violin Competition was held between January 16th and 20th, 2004 and was made possible through the generous support of Mr. Krymbek Kusherbayev (Akim of West Kazakhstan Oblast) and Karachaganak Petroleum Operating bv, under the leadership of John Morrow. First Prize was awarded to Atsuko Sahara (Japan). This CD commemorates her fine achievement in a competition of the very highest standard featuring young soloists from Kazakhstan, Russia, Europe, East Asia and other countries. The celebrated Kazakh violinist and Chairman of the Jury, Marat Bisengaliev announced the award of the joint first prize after the Final on January 21st, 2004. It is with sincere and grateful thanks to the Akim, Mr. Kusherbayev and to Mr. John Morrow (from KPO), that the making of this CD and the staging of the competition were made possible. |
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ID: QTZ2012
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Instrumental
Subcollection: SaxophoneThe Apollo Saxophone Quartet's vibrant and energetic exploration of portugese music is full of unexpected treasures. Encompassing a kaleidoscopic range of styles, including classical, rock, post-minimalist, jazz and experimental influences, this is one of the most colourful discs to be recently released on Quartz.
Short Cuts
Luis Tinoco - Short Cuts
(Commissioned with funds made available by The Arts Council of England North West)
My main purpose is to play with two possible meanings for "short cuts". That is, both with the idea of sharp and cutting musical gestures and the idea of taking a different, shorter, path to reach a specific destination. LuisTinoco
Luis Tinoco (b.1969, Lisbon) attained his First Degree in composition at the Escola Superior de M? de Lisboa where he studied under Ant󮩯 Pinho Vargas and Christopher Bochmann. He was then awarded scholarships by the Centro Nacional de Cultura and, later on, by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to complete a Masters degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied with Paul Patterson. Tinoco lectures in Composition and Analysis at the Escola Superior de M. de Lisboa. He wrote and presented A Century's Score - a 20th / 21st century music program for the RDP-Portuguese Radio Broadcast - from 2000 to 2003, and he is now the author of a new program, The Sound's Geography. He is also a founder and member of the Artistic Direction for the contemporary music ensemble OrchestrUtopica.
Carlos Azevedo - Sun Flower
The title "Sun Flower" is purely descriptive. My goal was to create ambiences that could be related to light and shadow, by using light and dark sonorities. The contrast between faster and slower gestures creates an idea of gradual movement from darkness to luminosity. In the sunflower's search for light, the piece derives a sense of purpose and drama. Carlos Azevedo
Carlos Azevedo (b.1964, Vila Real) studied composition at the Escola Superior de M. e Artes do Espectaculo in Porto and with George Nicholson at Sheffield University, where he received his MPhil in composition. Since 1997, Azevedo has been active as composer, conductor and pianist for the Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra. He is also leader of the Carlos Azevedo Ensemble and, as a jazz pianist, he has performed all over Portugal. His work In Motion was played by the Porto Symphony Orchestra in honour of Porto being the European Cultural Capital for 2001. He is currently a teacher of Analysis at the Escola Superior de Me Artes do Espectaculo in Porto.
Christopher Bochmann - Movements
Each movement is little more than a miniature. One, three, four and seven provide the backbone to the work: their duration is controlled and they define the underlying direction that moves from an immovable sustained music to a frenetically mobile music. The first movement is an introduction, a presentation of the germ-material. The second is an Alto solo, outlining many of the possible implications of this material. The third and fourth are of an almost canonic rigour. The fifth explores certain consonances that emerge from the material. The sixth provides a link between the fifth and seventh: it is improvisational in spirit but prepares the freneticism of the final movement. Christopher Bochmann
Christopher Bochmann (b.1950, Chipping Norton) was a chorister at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and then went on to Radley College. He studied privately with Nadia Boulanger in Paris before going up to New College, Oxford, where he worked with David Lumsden, Kenneth Leighton and Robert Sherlaw Johnson. He was also a pupil of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in London. Bochmann has taught in Britain and in Brazil, and since 1980 has lived and worked in Lisbon, Portugal. He is Head of Composition at the Escola Superior de M de Lisboa, of which he was also Director from 1995 to 2001. In 2003, he published the first treatise on Harmony in the Portuguese language for over fifty years (A Linguagem Harmónia do Tonalismo). As a composer he has won a number of prizes including the Lili Boulanger Award (twice) and the Clements Memorial Prize. In 1999, he received the degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University.
Joao Madureira - Loop
Loop, is the name of a small sax quartet based on a constantly shifting harmonic puzzle, giving the impression of a never ending process - which comes suddenly to an end. Joao Madureira
Joao Madureira (b.1971, Lisbon) graduated in Composition Studies at the Escola Superior de Musica de Lisboa in 1994, where his composition masters were António Pinho Vargas and Christopher Bochmann. In 1995 Madureira attended Franco Donatoni's classes in Siena and between 1997 and 2000 he graduated in Composition at the Hochschule fur Musik? where he studied with York Holler. Finally, he studied with Ivan Fedele at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique de Strassbourg until June 2003. Between 1998 and 2000 he benefited from a scholarship granted by the Centro Nacional de Cultura in Lisbon. In October 1998 Madureira's work Poem? was awarded the ACARTE / Maria Madalena Azeredo Perdig Prize, of the Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2003 he was invited to be composer-in-residence at the OrchestrUtopica. Joao Madureira teaches Composition Graduation Courses at both the Escola Superior de M? de Lisboa and the Escola Superior de Musica e Artes do Espectaculo do Porto.
Mario Laginha - Is this a Fugue?
Is this a fugue? Yes, it is.
Actually, it's the result of a great attraction that I have for this technique. As in other fugues I have written, I have tried to place this one in a musical universe that flirts with jazz but doesn't pretend to be jazz. Mario Laginha
Mario Laginha (b. 1960 Lisbon) studied classical music at the National Conservatory where his teachers included Jorge Moyano and Carla Seixas and subsequently received the Bach and the Teresa Vieira Awards. Jazz, however, has been always his main love. He has played with musicians such as Julian Arguelles, Wayne Shorter, Ralph Towner, Dino Saluzzi, Manu Katch, Django Bates, Bernardo Sassetti, Pedro Burmester and Trilok Gurtu. As a composer and musician Laginha has been very closely linked to singer Maria Joao together they have made eight albums and have played in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Over the past 10 years Mario Laginha has written for the Metropolitan Lisbon Orchestra, N.D.R Hamburg Big Band, Drumming, Remix Ensemble, Porto Symphonic Orchestra, and has recorded twelve albums.
Christopher Bochmann - Essay XIII (Rob Buckland - solo alto saxophone)
The first part is a sort of Moto Perpetuo based on a 7-note figure, with a lot of timbre trills. It reaches its climax with a sequence of multiphonics. The second part provides a contrast, with its long expressive cantabile sounds. This central part can be seen to be divided in four sections: the first sings in a middle register; the second hovers around a low E; the third explores the instrument?s high register; the fourth returns to the atmosphere of the first. The third and last part is a free development of all the musical material heard in the first two parts. There is no recapitulation as such although there are clear references to the material of the opening music. Christopher Bochmann
Pedro Moreira - 12 Tones in a Row
12 Tones in a Row is a short piece using basic serial procedures. The various melodic forms are intended to be very easily recognizable. There are several improvised sections. In these improvisations the resulting sonority still consists of 12 note aggregates. Like other forms of "harmonic" improvisation, the challenge is to find a place somewhere between freedom and restriction. After the introduction, more lyrical in character, the piece has a relaxed, playful feeling. Like a child playing with notes. In this case, 12 notes. Pedro Moreira
Pedro Moreira (b.1969, Lisbon). In 1985 Pedro Moreira performed extensively in Portugal's Jazz festivals and also toured the United States, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Mozambique, South Africa and the Ivory Coast. With his band he recorded Luandando (Movieplay), with Freddie Hubbard. He has also studied classical saxophone, theory and acoustics at the Lisbon National Conservatory. In 1996 he moved to New York. In 1998 he attained a Bachelor's degree in Jazz and Contemporary Music at the New School University. In 2000 he completed a Master's degree in Classical Composition at the Mannes College of Music. In 1998 Moreira received the Down Beat Music Student Award, in the categories of "Best Jazz Group" and ?Outstanding Performance". He has collaborated as musical assistant in Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World (Verve) and Wayne Shorter's Alegria (Verve). In 2000 the Stuttgart Philharmonic performed one of his orchestrations, commissioned by the German group Tango Five. He has also performed with Dave Liebman, Joe Chambers, Bobby Short, Benny Golson & Eddie Henderson.
Christopher Bochmann - Lampoons (2004) for Tenor Saxophone
(Andy Scott - solo tenor saxophone)
The title Lampoons is suggested by the characteristic exaggeration that is common to most aspects of the piece. The first movement gravitates towards one particular note which is repeatedly presented with different melodic arabesques, not unlike a muezzin's call to prayer. The second movement is a presentation of some extended techniques that border on mere "effect", thus denuding the musical argument of much of its subtlety. The third movement is a frenzied exploration of the virtuosic side of instrumental technique, at the end of which the player and the drama of the music are left drained. Nothing is left for more than a coda by suggestion. Christopher Bochmann
Pedro Moreira - Lola Bye
Brahms was a master of counterpoint and melodic fluency. In this piece, melodic fluency is taken to an extreme, consisting mainly of variations of interval class 1 (the semi-tone in all of its transformations). It could also represent those parents trying to sing Wiegenlied, but getting angry because the baby won?t fall asleep. Pedro Moreira
Bernardo Sassetti - Smoking Aria
All airports have a smoking area. This one is a smoking ?aria? where people meet, smoke starts twisting in the air and everybody starts dancing like crazy. Smoking Aria is based on a traditional Brazilian rhythm known as the Bai you might feel inspired to picture yourself smoking away on a huge Brazilian cigar! My idea was to build a very specific groove and develop variations throughout the piece. Personally the most interesting passages are when the music deconstructs itself into different parts, rhythms and accents. But all these parts (paths) lead to the same road (the main groove and melody). Bernardo assetti
Bernardo Sassetti (b.1970, Lisbon) began as a classical pianist but later devoted himself to Jazz, Horace Parlan and Sir Roland Hanna. He started his professional career in 1987, showcased in the Carlos Martins quartet and the Moreiras Jazztet. He has played with Andy Sheppard, Art Farmer, Kenny Wheeler, Freddie Hubbard, Paquito D?Rivera, Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Eddie Henderson, Charles McPherson, Steve Nelson, the United Nations Orchestra and in the quintet of Guy Barker. Recently, he formed a duo with pianist and composer Mario Laginha. Recordings as a leader include "Salsetti" (1994) and "Mundos" (1996), as well as in his Suites "Ecos de Africa", "Sons do Brasil" and "Suite Iberica". Bernardo has also been extremely active as a film composer. He recently participated in the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley dir. Anthony Minguella, recording My Funny Valentine and Tu Vuo? Fa L'Americano with Matt Damon, Jude Law and Fiorello, and You Don't Know What Love Is with the Scottish singer John Martyn. He also co-wrote with Guy Barker, a series of compositions to be premiered at the world openings of this movie held in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Paris, London and Rome. |
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ID: QTZ2011
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Instrumental
Subcollection: PianoThe first volume in the Gould Piano Trio's series of the complete Piano Trios by Johannes Brahms.
The Gould Trio is one of the most acclaimed young chamber ensembles to emerge from the UK in recent years and have toured many of the great international concert halls and festivals.
Brahms Piano Trios - Volume One
Of all the great composers, Brahms is probably the one we know least about. A passionately private man, he left few clues to the workings of his musical mind - unlike, say, Beethoven, there are no sketch books showing how his musical ideas evolved, just the final finished products. Anything that did not meet his exacting standards was destroyed; here is a composer who destroyed more string quartets and symphonies than he left behind. There is just a single exception, and that is the B major Piano Trio, written in 1853-4, at the height of his worship of Schumann when Brahms was twenty-one, and then revised in 1889, just before he started to withdraw into a semi-retirement from composing. By the time of the later version, the old version had a wide currency and was a popular piece. The revised version is undoubtedly finer, combining that youthful fire with the experience that the intervening years had brought him, and it is this version that is recorded here.
The opening retains its noble, sweeping idea from the original, a long singing melody, full of potential and implications, the unusual choice of key adding a warm glow. This immediately announces the scale of the piece as something equal to, say, Schubert?s final piano sonatas. After working this material to a focal point, Brahms then writes a contrasting idea. In the first version of the piece, the continuity breaks down, with a rather four-square idea, but in the revised version the continuity is such that the new theme - still retaining its own identity - grows naturally and seamlessly out of the first idea. The next section, after the themes have been stated is very different between the two versions, the first including an amazing if rather strenuous fugal passage, while the second has a density that Brahms found in old age. The piano figuration here is also far removed from the virtuoso of his youth, with clarity of texture of paramount importance. The restatement of all the material after this has a complete sense of maturity in the final version, a fusion of the two ideas and at the end, a sense of stasis, of recollection and of summing up. Listeners who know the late collections of piano pieces will recognise the fingerprints of the composer at his best here.
In all, Brahms pruned the first movement from 494 bars to 290, all in the interests of concision. The Scherzo has no such changes: mere details are changed along the way and a new coda is added, more successful and effective in preparing a slowing down of pace before the slow movement than the original, with its Mendelssohnian pizzicato version of the main theme. Listening to his Op 4 Scherzo for piano, we can sense how the youthful Brahms found such music more straight-forward than in old age, although in the overall context of this work, the Scherzo does not sound out of place. In later life, Brahms generally preferred to compose intermezzo type movements instead of scherzos - for example, only the last of the four symphonies has a Scherzo, and that of a more "symphonic" definition. The slow movement is again quite different in the two versions, the opening chorale-like idea is allowed to expand in a way that Brahms restricts in the later version and the faster section, which provided contrast, is replaced by a passionate, rather sad theme, first given to the cello. Brahms once told his pupil Jenner that a long Adagio was "the most difficult" to sustain, hence, maybe, his original solution. The mood of the revised is much more restrained and where, in the original, the audience had to be content with a brief reminiscence of the opening theme, Brahms provides a fuller restatement, with musing improvisatory figures for the piano when the strings give out their answering phrase. A harmonic shift provides tension in this closing section and, though resolved quickly, the after-effects can be felt at the start of the last movement, the only serious attempt to dislodge the key of B - major or minor - in the whole of the work. The shadowy figures eventually give way to a carefree contrasting idea, which was an addition in the revision. Clara Schumann had not been uncritical of the first version but the theme that this replaced was special to her. In Schumann's music there is an element of quotation which appealed to the young Brahms, and the theme originally at this point was a direct quotation from Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte. The symbolic significance of this quotation would not have been lost on Clara, at a time when her husband was desperately ill and it was the only part of the revision she disliked, telling Brahms that the new idea was "repellent." The restatement is varied, but structurally similar to the opening of the movement and the coda, based on the first theme, dispels any lingering doubts. Again a swathe of material was removed in this movement: almost two hundred bars are cut.
Brahms said of his new version of the piece, "I did not provide it with a wig, but merely combed and arranged its hair a little." The opportunity had come to revise the Trio as a result of a new publisher taking over his works and offering a reprint of any revisions of slight weaknesses in the early works. He must have been surprised by the extent of Brahms? touching up of this Trio and yet the miracle is how the old thematic material sits side by side with a new leaner structure, without a hint of inconsistency. Still Brahms could not make up his mind, when he finally got around to sending the publisher his revised Trio. "I must state that the old one is bad, but do not maintain that they new one is good!" That the new version speaks so directly to audiences, with none of the complexity of the older work is what has secured its place in the repertory.
The C major Trio was finished in 1882, twenty-eight years after the B major though the opening Allegro was composed in 1880. Both Summers were spent in Ischl, a spot which seems to have opened the floodgates of inspiration for Brahms (the last three movements were written in the space of a single month). The most withdrawn of his Symphonies, the Third, dates from just after this time, and its reflective mood is predicted here in this Trio. The piano's had developed enormously during the middle of the nineteenth century and in chamber works where it is partnered by strings, its power had sometimes proved quite a tour de force for the strings; Brahms on the other hand provides a most effective balance between the strings and piano with the sort of writing which was to distinguish itself again the Double Concerto (here pitted against the orchestra) written at the end of the same decade.
The rich flow and invention of the opening movement is the equal of the finest of the Classical period. one of its especial beauties is the heart of the movement where the opening theme takes on a lyrical guise, which returns in the lively coda. The slow movement is a set of five variations on a wistful folk-like melody. An important motif source is the syncopation which runs throughout the theme, deliberately holding back the inherent liquidity until the final variation.
The Scherzo is a threatening affair, with diminished sevenths running though the harmonic fabric of the movement, a harsh contrast to the open diatonicism of the central section. The Finale is, like the first movement, in a tightly constructed sonata form. Brahms is in assertive mood and his pride in the works is fully evident in every small detail.
Copyright: Mike George
Gould Piano Trio:
The Gould Piano Trio have established a reputation as one of the most stylish and versatile ensembles performing today. Highly regarded in the field of chamber music, they enjoy a career that takes them to major venues in the UK and overseas. Chosen as British Rising Stars for the 1998-9 season, the Trio has performed in such prestigious venues as New York's Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts, Birmingham Symphony Hall and major halls in Paris, Cologne, Athens and Vienna.
Festival appearances have included Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Spoleto and the BBC Proms, whilst overseas travels have taken them to New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan, South America and most European countries. They regularly tour to the USA, performing in the Lincoln Center, Weil Hall and at the Frick Collection. In the UK they appear at the Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Purcell Room, LSO St. Luke's, Queen's Hall Edinburgh, and they will be giving one of the first chamber concerts at The Sage, Gateshead as part of an Arts Council-sponsored "Around the Country" national tour. Both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic have invited the Trio to perform James MacMillan's chamber works at their forthcoming festivals. Frequent broadcasts from these venues have made the Goulds a familiar ensemble to listeners of BBC Radio 3. The Trio have recorded CDs of trios by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Smetana and Bax, as well as a cover disc for the BBC Music Magazine. This CD, the first in a series for Quartz, will be followed by a further volume of Brahms Trios, the premiere recordings of the trios of Robert Fuchs and the Tchaikovsky Trio. In 1999 the Trio started its own annual chamber music festival in Corbridge.
The Gould Piano Trio have been the recipients of many national and international awards; First Prize at the Charles Hennen Competition in Holland was followed by joint First Prize in the inaugural Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in Australia. At the 1993 Premio Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence they were awarded the audience prize in addition to the overall First Prize. In the UK the Trio have won awards from the Tillett and John Tunnell Trusts. As part of their commitment to extending the piano trio repertoire, the Goulds have commissioned works and performed many contemporary pieces. They enjoy coaching young ensembles and giving workshops in schools. |
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ID: QTZ2010
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Electronic
Subcollection: ViolinA remarkable album of works written specially for the celebrated Russian violinist Roman Mints. Technical virtuosity and state-of-the-art electronic manipulation combine to produce a startling, atmospheric and highly original CD.
Game Over
Several years ago I met Artem Vassiliev, a Russian composer who writes both acoustic and electronic music. He introduced me to the world of electroacoustic music. Having listened to various electronic compositions I felt that despite some very interesting sounds and textures, an important element was missing. I realised that this "something" was a live human voice or an equivalent - a violin, for example. I commissioned Artem to write a piece for violin and tape for me. The result of our collaboration was Story I, which I first performed in Purcell Room during my Park Lane Group New Year Series recital. Soon after, another Russian composer Alexander Raikhelson wrote a piece for two violins and tape for the Homecoming Festival, of which I am the Co-Director. At that time, this kind of music was beginning to interest me more and more, so I decided to make this album. I contacted Irish composer Ed Bennett, whose "You Are Always Right" for voice and tape had impressed me deeply. He contributed two very contrasting pieces for the programme. Taras Buevsky, yet another Russian composer, wrote Largo Recitare, a dark and philosophical piece of music. Artem Vassiliev wrote the last piece, Game Over, for the fourth Homecoming Festival. I suggested to Artem, that the piece should start as any normal chamber music would and the tape should start only in the Coda, so it would be a complete surprise for the audience. What resulted was one of Artem's "hits", a piece which is still one of his most successful works.
I am most thankful to everybody who invested their time and talent into making of this recording, which has helped me realise a childhood dream, because this is probably as close as I will ever get to being a rock musician! |
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