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Instrumental, page 75

   Found CDs: 881
 

PIERRE JODLOWSKI - Drones - Barbarismes - Dialog / No Dialog

PIERRE JODLOWSKI - Drones - Barbarismes - Dialog / No Dialog
ID: KAI0013032
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Collection: Instrumental

21.00 eur Buy

Ready Steady Blow! - Music for beginner oboists

Ready Steady Blow! - Music for beginner oboists
ID: CC2010
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Collection: Instrumental
Subcollection: Oboe

This CD is recorded by the Graduate Students of Trinity College of Music in London, who took their post-Graduate Diploma in performing in June 2004

In the CD booklet the oboists talk about how they got started on the oboe. It has 16 pages in full colour (English only), with more photos and information, and how to obtain the music.

The main purpose of this CD is to show that there is a wealth of good music, in many styles, available to the oboe beginner. These pieces are within the general Grade 3 level, and some of them can be played after just a few lessons, so that learning the oboe can be a musical experience right from the beginning. The tracks are marked 0 to 3, to indicate their general technical level, where 0 indicates a pre-Grade 1 piece.
There are two exceptions to the Grade 3 limit - Mozart's La ci Darem (Grade 4), because it points the way to a new world of musical expression, and Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter, because, as one teacher put it, it is by far the nicest way to learn the bottom two notes on the oboe.
The selection was made in consultation with a number of teachers. I asked them which pieces their pupils responded to with enthusiasm. I soon noticed the same pieces being mentioned time and again. Some pieces were liked by some teachers and not by others, and I added in my own preferences, and take full responsibility for the final choice.
It was also necessary to stick to a smallish number of books or tutors, so that the pupil is not faced with a large music bill. Where only one piece has been included from a particular collection, it always means that there are other equally good pieces in that book. Exclusion of a book of pieces does not mean it is not good. Attention was also paid to the various exam syllabuses for Grades 1 to 3; some of these pieces appear there, some do not.
21.00 eur Buy

Music for Oboe, Horn and Piano

Music for Oboe, Horn and Piano
ID: CC2022
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Subcollection: Oboe

The 20-page full colour CD booklet has a 3,000 word programme note in English with full details of each track.
There are biographies of the players, web links and many photographs.

Introduction by Jeremy Polmear:

In the realm of chamber music the combination of oboe, horn and piano is an unusual one. The string quartet medium reigns supreme in its ability to inspire great works from great composers. There are many reasons for this, one being that in a string quartet each instrument has its own character, but all are of the same family so that they can also blend as a unit. Each can add its voice on equal terms to the others, speaking the same language but with its own individual accent.

By contrast the wind quintet of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn is all just that - contrast. Each instrument occupies its own sound-world, its own unique colour. This is what makes these instruments so valuable in an orchestra, but can be a challenge in a chamber music context. It takes a very skilful composer - and skilful performers too - to create satisfying blends with these instruments.

It is perhaps no accident that when Mozart wrote chamber music for flute, oboe, clarinet, and horn, he did so individually, in works with strings. Or he added a piano to smooth out the sound, as in the celebrated Quintet K452 with oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. On this CD we have done something similar with his Horn Quintet K407; although the violin part is now on the oboe, the two violas and cello are given to the piano.

And it is the piano that is the key to the possibilities of the trio with oboe and horn. Even when it is an accompanying role it can provide a mellow presence and a solid harmonic basis, over which the other instruments can sing. This is true in the Mozart, and also in the two short nineteenth century pieces recorded here, by Blanc and Molbe.

And what of the other two instruments? The US horn player Cynthia Carr, in the introduction to her repertoire list of music for the trio, puts it thus: "This ensemble - comprised of the most distinctive-sounding woodwind instrument and the most versatile member of the brass family - presents a rich tonal palette and can produce a wide range of textures, from delicate and transparent to full and orchestral." This can be seen in this CD particularly in the Herzogenberg Trio Op 60 (1889), and in the way that Jean-Michel Damase makes full, and delightful, play of all the possibilities in his Trio of 1990. The oboe cannot match the horn in terms of dynamic range, but its timbre means that it can still be heard, even when both the other instruments are at full stretch. Meanwhile, within the context of the piano sound, the two instruments can celebrate their differences - the oboe melodic and poignant, the horn warm and noble.

In her repertoire list, Cynthia Carr lists nearly forty compositions. There is a genre here, but it is miniscule compared to the repertoire for a string quartet or even a wind quintet. This is because the oboe/horn/piano trio has never been a standard instrumental combination, never part of a European Court as, for example, the Wind Band octets were. Compositions have come about in a more haphazard way. The nineteenth century was a bad one for wind chamber music players - only Schumann and Brahms among the major composers wrote anything. Where they did, it was for specific players, for example the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld for whom Brahms wrote the Clarinet Quintet. For this Trio there are two keynote nineteenth century pieces - the Herzogenberg Trio already mentioned, and one by Carl Reinecke, written in 1887.

During the 20th Century there were a smattering of works, but the increase in interest didn't come about until late in the century, with the rise of oboe/horn/piano trios in the US, particularly Cynthia Carr's own Trio Arundel, and the horn player Martin Webster of the Hancock Chamber Players. They not only wanted to play music, but were willing to commission pieces, resulting in Paul Basler's jazzy Vocalise-Waltz of 1996 (commissioned by Cynthia) and the Damase Trio mentioned above, commissioned by Martin.

To these people we owe a debt for opening up new possibilities in the under-exploited world of wind chamber music.
21.00 eur Temporarily out of stock

Antaras - Music for Oboe by Edwin Roxburgh

Antaras - Music for Oboe by Edwin Roxburgh
ID: CC2019
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Subcollection: Piano

The 24-page full colour CD booklet has a 6,000 word programme note in English
with full details of each track, and extensive information about the composer and about his use of multiphonics.
There are biographies of all the players and many photographs.

Introduction by Jeremy Polmear:

This CD is a collection of music by a single composer, mostly for a single combination of instruments (oboe and piano), yet the sheer variety of the music is immediately apparent. Most obviously perhaps, is the the use of multiphonics on the oboe, which are central to Shadow Play, are used extensively in most of the other pieces, but not at all in Aulodie or Cantilena. The harmonic and rhythmic complexity of the pieces also varies - from the virtuosic Antares to the touching simplicity of Cantilena. Furthermore, these pieces cover a period of nearly 40 years, yet there is no obvious trend of an evolving style during this period. What kind of composer is Edwin Roxburgh, really? What labels can we apply?

Roxburgh himself hates labels. For example, he says "I was never a serial composer. Serial composition is in any case just one way of expressing something; to add a label to it isn't really the point. And the 'neo-' label - why spend the time regenerating characteristics of the past? By all means borrow from the past, and also from the musical clichés which surround us in the present - embrace these things, but transform them into something of your own. As a composer, you need to add your own brick to the wall of the evolution of music."

A composer's creative process is notoriously hard to define, but Roxburgh puts it thus: "I start with the idea for a piece, and then I look for the vocabulary with which to express that idea. It's different for every composition; I'm looking at modes of harmony, of rhythm, of modulation that are going to be able to express that idea. And at physics, too; the physics of the oboe, and its chords, these can be part of the vocabulary, an exciting area to explore."

It is this willingness to define his artistic vocabulary afresh for the needs of each composition that gives authenticity to Edwin Roxburgh’s music, and perhaps explains the remark made by his teacher Nadia Boulanger that Edwin was 'the new Stravinsky'. It is also interesting to note that Roxburgh describes Schoenberg and Fauré as two of his musical 'grandparents'. Boulanger was a pupil of Fauré and another teacher was Luigi Dallapiccola, a pupil of Schoenberg.

We can also see evidence in this CD of the source of some of Edwin Roxburgh's ideas. People feature prominently, especially oboists. Elegy was written in memory of Janet Craxton (who can be heard on Oboe Classics CC2011). Its use of multiphonics would perhaps not have enthused its dedicatee ("I'm not Holliger", she told one composer); yet the quiet, warm, unselfish spirit of Janet the player and Janet the person pervades the piece.

Léon Goossens (available on Oboe Classics CC2005) is a source for two pieces here: Antares, written for Nicholas Daniel to play for his 90th birthday. And Aulodie, which was written ten years earlier for Goossens himself to perform. In this latter piece, the composer pays tribute to a player in an extraordinary way. Not only is the musical vocabulary one with which Goossens would have been familiar, but Roxburgh even includes the kinds of phrases and moods at which Goossens excelled.

External events are another impulse for Roxburgh. As he says, "sometimes I'm touched by an event. Composers can't affect politicians, but we can make a point for history. It can be a simple expression, as long as it's profound." Listening to the two tracks which comment on war, Cantilena and Silent Strings, we can hear much more than simple anger; perhaps this is because in each of these pieces Edwin Roxburgh has combined his aversion for an act with his respect for particular individuals - the composer Adrian Cruft; and the performers Paul Goodey and Sally Mays.
21.00 eur Temporarily out of stock

Melodic Lines - Oboe, Bassoon & Piano

Melodic Lines - Oboe, Bassoon & Piano
ID: CC2016
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Subcollection: Piano

The 24-page CD booklet has a 6,000 word programme note in English including interviews with Roderick Swanston (on Geoffrey Bush), Barbara Thompson (on Green), Roger Lord (on Madeleine Dring) and Richard Stoker (on his Miniatures). There are biographies of the composers and many photographs.


Has melody always been with us? Will it continue to flourish? Yes, and yes. The practise of creating pitched sounds is a universal human phenomenon, and the pentatonic scale has been found in many cultures all over the world. In the West it was present in some of the earliest examples of notated music, such as Gregorian Chant, and is with us today.

The melodies in Lalliet’s Terzetto, for example, are not universal - they are clearly a product of European culture in the 19th Century. But whatever form it takes, the existence of melody itself is universal. It seems likely that melody was linked to communication long before opera was invented; the pre-verbal vocalising of a baby could be said to be a kind of melody, and right from the start comes the idea that melody not just an abstract thing that we happen to like, but that it is linked with an emotional or physical state, and with the communication of that state. Melody is very fundamental to us, relating to our physiology, not just to our sense of beauty.

The history of melody has had, as it were, its ups and downs. In the classical period, a long melodic line was not considered flexible enough for symphonic development - all you could do was repeat it or make variations of it - and it was often replaced by a short motif that could be worked on. However, by the 19th Century, when the earliest piece on this CD was written (the Lalliet), melody was in its hayday. The scientist Hermann Helmholtz asserted that it was 'the incarnation of motion in music', the critic Eduard Hanslick saw in it 'the archetypal configuration of beauty', and Wagner asserted that there was no reason that a melody need ever end. In practice even Wagner ended his melodies eventually, but this was felt to be a choice and not a necessity. Surprisingly, the best example of an ‘unending’ melody on this CD comes from Wagner’s antithesis, Francis Poulenc, in the slow movement of his Trio.

In the 20th Century, melody suffered an eclipse from the followers of the Second Viennese School. This wasn't their original intention; Webern, for example, said he was looking for 'absolute melody', but this was at the expense of something you could hum, and advances in instrumental techniques, synthesisers and computers encouraged later composers to pursue ends other than melodic ones.

Meanwhile other developments, such as the incorporation of folk music, or the 'Socialist Realism' of composers such as Shostakovitch, as well as the rise of popular music as a separate genre, ensured the survival of melody. On this CD the operatic melodies of Casimir-Théophile Lalliet (circa 1870), the Romantic urges of Francis Poulenc (1928), the heartfelt melancholy of Geoffrey Bush (1952), the chirpy tunes of Richard Stoker (1963), the mediaeval references of Madeleine Dring (1971), and the sinuous lines of Barbara Thompson (2006), demonstrate that melody is alive and well.

It may also be that it is in the nature of the oboe and bassoon to play tunes, to connect to the human voice, and this has encouraged these composers to be more 'melodic' when writing for these instruments. Today's advanced instrumental techniques enable both oboe and bassoon players to make music of extraordinary complexity, but I can't help feeling that when our remote ancestors first punched finger holes in a wooden tube, it was a melody they had in mind.
© 2006 Jeremy Polmear
21.00 eur Temporarily out of stock

Oboe: Berio & Beyond

Oboe: Berio & Beyond
ID: CC2015
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Subcollection: Oboe

The 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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LUIGO NONO - La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura - Melise Mellinger - Salvatore Sciarrino

LUIGO NONO - La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura - Melise Mellinger - Salvatore Sciarrino
ID: KAI0012102
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Collection: Instrumental

"Nostalgic, utopian, future distance", the title of this piece investigates the possibilities of violin playing, the intimate, physical quality of the sound and the historical dimensions inherent to this instrument."
21.00 eur Buy

JOSÉ MANUEL LÓPEZ LÓPEZ - Conciertos

JOSÉ MANUEL LÓPEZ LÓPEZ - Conciertos
ID: KAI0013022
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Collection: Instrumental
Subcollection: Violin

José Manuel López López, a composer with many long years of experience, stands out by virtue of his mature style of writing and the consistent way in which he adapts what he writes to the sound which he intends to produce. Since composing his initial musical works during the 1980s, his development has led from atonality to spectralism and, from there, on to experimentation with various temporal granulations. This CD brings together three symphonic works with solo instruments that exemplify this development. Written in the period between 1995 and 2005, they represent three distinctly different contributions to the contemporary orchestral repertoire.
(Horacio Vaggione)


Includes booklet with texts by Horacio Vaggione and José Manuel López López
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WOLFGANG RIHM - Klavierstücke 7,5,4,2,1 - Bernhard Wambach

WOLFGANG RIHM - Klavierstücke 7,5,4,2,1 - Bernhard Wambach
ID: KAI0012372
CDs: 1
Type: CD
Collection: Instrumental
Subcollection: Piano

Wolfgang Rihm once said retrospectively of his piano oeuvre: "The music I have composed for piano is not a separate block within my production stream. In its own way, every piece shares in and belongs to the problematic of its wider context. The works Klavierstück Nr. 1 to Klavierstück Nr. 7 are not based on a cyclical concept." To summarise, let us reflect on Wolfgang Rihm's piano work, here in his own perspective: "Nr. 1 is a free development form, which, however, did not emerge freely, without constraints. The piece is wholly dominated by the expressive uncertainty which derived from what everyone was preaching, namely that everything be structured. So I integrated refrains, inserts, cross-references here and left and right. This technique becomes especially distinct in Klavierstück Nr. 4 and Nr. 5. Setting the part of the piano gradually turns into the setting of accents, which opens up possibilities of expression that I did not discover until Klavierstück Nr. 7. This is where the preoccupation with Beethoven's piano setting and his wild-gentle gestures, the so-called late Beethoven's, becomes the main driving force. (Wolfgang Hofer)

Includes booklet with text by Wolfgang Hofer
21.00 eur Buy

F.P. Schubert - Piano Sonata No.20, 6 Moments musicaux, Op.94 - M. Helmchen, piano

F.P. Schubert - Piano Sonata No.20,  6 Moments musicaux, Op.94 - M. Helmchen, piano
ID: PTC5186329
CDs: 1
Type: SACD
Collection: Instrumental
Subcollection: Piano

Multichannel Hybrid SACD - DSD
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