Showing posts with label Classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classic. Show all posts

16.3.14

Flute & Guitar


Mie Ogura & 
Atanas Ourkouzounov
False Classic
2011

Tracks:

01 - Rada
02 - No Mystery
03 - Bul-Bop
04 - "Musica Ricercata" Allegro Con Spirito
05 - "Musica Ricercata" Rubato-Lamentoso
06 - "Musica Ricercata" Vivace
07 - "Musica Ricercata" Vivace-Energico
08 - "Three East Tales" N°1 the Fox's Dance
09 - "Three East Tales" N°2 the Red Elf's Lullaby
10 - "Three East Tales" N°3 Dracula's Caprice
11 - Spain
12 - Take the "A" Train
13 - Macedonian Song
14 - Bulchenska Ratchenitsa

Works by Ligeti, Corea, Ourkouzounov, Ellington, Papasov.

Mie Ogura: flute
Atanas Ourkouzounov: guitar

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Flute

  
Born in Japan 1973, Mie Ogura started to play the flute at age 7.
In 1989, she finished her studies at the Takamatsu Music Highschool in Japan and obtained the first price in the National students Flute Competition in Osaka.

In 1994,Mie Ogura moved to France,and in 1999 graduated with Diplôme Supérieur from Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris under Pierre-Yves Artaud and Sophie Cherrier.. then obtained an improvisation diploma under the tutelage of Alain Savouret.
She also studied baroque flute with Pierre Séchet and jazz improvisation Jean-Charles Richard, as well as indian music with Patrick Moutal.

In 2001 she obtained a scholarship from the Academia Musicale de Siena(Italy) under Aurèle Nicolet(flute) and Alain Meunier(chamber music), also worked with Franco Donatoni.They highly appreciates her playing.

Her playng is called"The fan of sound",since 1995 Mie Ogura has appeared regulary as a soloist and chamber musician with different ensembles and orchestras,among others,Ensamble Sphota(improvisation),Ensemble L’Itinéraire,Ensemble Entretemps(contemporary music),Orchestre pour la paix(Classical), Compagny Robinson(contemporary Danse) etc...and invited in many festivals in the world (Europe,America,Canada,Australia,Japan..)

Her improvisation playng in also appreciated from many jazz and classical musiciens such as Loelle Léandre(cb), Glenn Ferris(tb), Masataka Hirano(Sax), Shin-Ichi Fukuda,Kazumi Watanabe, Carlo Domeniconi(gt) and many others.

Mie Ogura has recorded with the ensemble Triton2 (Label MFA,France) and Ensemble Ourkouzounov (Label KLE,Italy),and Duo with Atanas OURKOUZOUNOV (Label Varié in Japan and Label H&S Paris) also edited the jazz flute beginners book « Flute Jazz Coffeebreak », published in 2005 at Edition Trim (Japan).

Her favorite musiciens is Miles Davis,Roland Kirk,Chick Corea,Keith Jarrett,Hari Prasad Chaurasia etc....

Flute and imrovisation professor at the Jacques Ibert Conservatory in Paris,and Conservatory in Sucy en Brie.
  

Guitar
  
  
Atanas Ourkouzounov (b. 1970 in Burgas, Bulgaria), a leading figure in Bulgaria’s contemporary music, is winning international fame both as a guitarist and as a composer. His music features the asymmetric rhythms and modal harmonies typical of his homeland but, like Béla Bartók, Ourkouzounov (pronounced Oor-koo-ZOO-nov) uses regional traditions as a point of departure from which he ranges widely in an intu-itive and personal way. Whereas Bartók’s muse was the piano, Ourkouzounov’s muse is―fortunately for guitarists―the guitar. Ourkouzounov has written over 60 works for guitar―solos, duos, trios, quartets, instrumental ensembles, and two concerti―a number of which have won important prizes, and a majority of which have been published by leading publishers.

Atanas Ourkouzounov performs widely as soloist, with his wife the Japanese flautist Mie Ogura, and with the Ourkouzounov Ensemble (two guitars, flute and cello).
In addition to three CDs on which Ourkouzounov plays, more than 30 CDs of his music performed by others are currently available.

Ourkouzounov is also in demand as a teacher and juror at conferences and conservatories in Europe and Japan and he holds a full-time position at the Conservatoire “Maurice Ravel” in Paris.

Atanas Ourkouzounov grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he began guitar studies with Dimitar Doitchinov.

Starting in 1992, he continued his studies in France with Arnaud Dumond, Alexandre Lagoya and Olivier Chassain. He studied guitar, chamber music, analysis, ethnomusicology and improvisation at the Paris Conservatory and graduated in 1997 winning by unanimous vote the First Prize in guitar.

Six years before he went to Paris, he started to compose. He was 16 years old and had been playing guitar only one year. For fun, he began changing details in pieces he was learning and then he wrote his first piece―3 Inventions―using the baroque idiom and subject of a fugue he was studying. He became intoxicated with composing and soon started using melodies, rhythms, and modal harmonies of Bulgarian folk music. At the same time, he was avidly listening to recordings, especially Arthur Honegger’s Symphonie N°5 and Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Petrushka.To this day, Igor Stravinsky, György Ligeti, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Claude Debussy are among Ourkouzounov’s favorite composers.

While at least a trace of Bulgaria is always present in Ourkouzounov’s music, in the last eight years he has also written pieces he calls “dedications” in which he composes his own music
from the point of view of other composers and/or idioms―for example, Caprice d'après Paganini(which imagines a "new” Paganini as he might exist today); Fantaisie d'après Kapsberger (which draws on elements of 17th-century music for archlute); and Toryanse
Tales(which uses a Japanese folk theme).

Ourkouzounov is also fascinated by timbre and idiomatic colorisitic effects ―as explored for example in Light Echoes from Star -light―5 Nocturnes, in the Reflet guitar duos, and above all in the Visions Chromatiques N°1for guitar solo and the Visions Chromatiques N°2 for voice, violin, mandola, and guitar.

Ourkouzounov feels the “timbre” works are more contemporary and abstract―and perhaps more personal― than his pieces in which Bulgarian elements prevail.

Ourkouzounov enjoys performing flute-guitar duos with his wife. Typical programs are two Ourkouzounov works alongside arrangements and original music by diverse composers―for example, pieces by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Béla Bartók, and Claude Debussy―as well as arrangements Ourkouzounov calls “postcards” (folk music from countries such as Mali, Japan, Bulgaria, Brazil, and India). As a listener, Ourkouzounov loves performers such as the conductor Carlos Kleiber, the pianists Grigory Sokolov and Keith Jarrett, and many jazz or folk-jazz musicians―for example, the Bulgarian clarinetist Ivo Papazov, the Bulgarian flautist Theodosii Spassov and the group Shakti (especially the guitarist John McLaughlin and the tabla player Zakir Hussain).
 


 
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14.3.14

Pourquoi le ciel est-il bleu...

  
Alberto Cruzprieto
Bleu
1999

Tracks:
    
01. Danzas nocturnas - Luis Jordá (5:45)
02. Mélancolíe - Francis Poulenc (5:14)
03. Barcarole no. 1, op. 26 - Gabriel Fauré (3:52)
04. Prélude, fugue et variation - César Franck (10:30)
05. Berceuse - Ricardo Castro (3:13)
06. Mazurca - Manuel M. Ponce (3:12)
07. Sonatine - Maurice Ravel (10:22)
08. Paysage - Ernest Chausson (3:07)
09. La cathédrale engloutie - Claude A. Debussy (6:28)
10. La fille aux cheveux du lin - Claude A. Debussy (2:45)

Recorded in Auditorio Blas Galindo of the National Arts Centre, on Nov. 12-13, 1997
  
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 Alberto Cruzprieto, piano

La carrera de Alberto Cruzprieto es una de las más interesantes en nuestro medio musical y no puede ser medida con los parámetros tradicionales de concursos ganados y premios obtenidos.

Poseedor de una excelente técnica, Alberto se encuentra componiendo con la difusión de la buena música bien ejecutada. No en balde directores de la talla del fallecido Eduardo Mata lo seleccionaron como solista para presentaciones y grabaciones.

La música de cámara ha sido su principal ámbito de trabajo, donde es invitado con frecuencia por los mejores grupos. Por otro parte, su nombramiento como Concertista de Bellas Artes le permite dedicar parte importante de su tiempo a ejecutar no sólo las grandes obras del repertorio para piano, si no difundir composiciones que han sido injustamente olvidadas.

Otro de sus campos de acción favoritos es el de la música de nuestro siglo y a las propuestas de música nueva para el piano. Testimonio de esto son las múltiples grabaciones hechas para radio y televisión, y que abarcan tanto el repertorio pianístico como música de cámara, en las que Alberto ha participado. Es invitado imprescindible para todas las actividades relacionadas con la difusión de la música nueva que se realiza en el país. En 1992 grabó el Concierto para piano y alientos de Stravinsky, con la Camerata, bajo la dirección de Eduardo Mata, así como un disco en Londres junto a la mezzo-soprano mexicana Encarnación Vázquez.

Recibió en 1990 la Beca del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Recientemente ha participado en conciertos con artistas de la talla de Pierre Amoyal, Stephanie Chase y el Cuarteto Latinoamericano. 


 

10.1.14

Mas Agua

  
Water Fantasies
Liszt - Fauré - Chopin - Ravel - Debussy
Eduard Stan, piano
2002

Tracks:

FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886)
01. Les jeux d’eau à la villa d’Este     8:18
02. Au lac de Wallenstadt 3:39
03. Au bord d’une source 4:28
04. “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” (Schubert – Liszt) 4:34
   
GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845 – 1924)
05. Barcarolle No. 9 in A Minor, op. 101 4:49
06. Barcarolle No. 5 in F sharp Minor, op. 66     7:21
07. Barcarolle No. 3 in G flat Major, op. 42     8:22
08. Barcarolle No. 8 in D flat Major, op. 96     3:49
   
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810 – 1849)
09. Prélude in D flat Major, op. 28 No. 15 “Raindrop”     5:20
   
MAURICE RAVEL (1875 – 1937)
10. Jeux d’eau     6:18

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
11. Reflets dans l’eau     5:13
12. Poissons d’or     4:24
13. L’Isle joyeuse 6:43
  
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 “This compilation of nature descriptions by means of the water element has been long overdue: Composers such as Liszt, Fauré, Chopin, Ravel or Debussy have written corresponding works, which the Romanian pianist Eduard Stan renders with a lot of atmosphere.
The enumeration of those composers points to a common style which was basically pursued in France, the impressionism…
Pianist Eduard Stan, a Transylvanian award-winner of various prizes, brings out the sounding stream most subtly. He succeeds in modelling sound values and moods, condensing them to extreme tensions despite his apparent lightness of playing.
In particular, he manages to put the listener into a meaningful relationship with the subject of
water: you listen to a lucidly lapping murmur and flow…”

teb (author), 28 May 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~

„Water Fantasies“ is the motto of this CD which gives a selection of piano works concerning water. Piano music, as it were “inspired by the sound of water and the musical whim of fountains, waterfalls and brooks” (says Ravel about his “Jeux d’eau”) – piano sounds allowing the imagination of the listener to wake with manifold associations: barques, islands, fish…
text & piano:




 

19.10.11

Opera in Ukraine

  
Ukrainian Opera Singing
Masterpieces of Ukrainian Music
2006
  
Tracks:

01. Quietly over the river (AP Batiuk, S. Cherkasenko) - Elena Slobodyanik, Alexander Taranets
02. Four oxen pass I (b., excl. Anatolskyi-Kos) - Evgeniya Miroshnichenko
03. Oksana and Andrew Duet from the opera "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube" (S.Gulak-Artemovsky) - Zoya Hayday, Ivan Kozlovsky
04. Black Eyebrows (D. Bonkovskyy, arr. Nadenenka F. - K. Dumytrashko) - Valery Bujmister
05. Duet Odarka and Kars from the opera "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube" (S.Gulak-Artemovsky) - Maria Litvinenko-Volgemut, John Patorzhinskogo
06. Jihav Cossack beyond the Danube (Born, LV Beethoven arr) - Valery Bujmister
07. Why do I black eyebrows (born, arr J. Borkowski - T. Shevchenko) - Diana Petrynenko
08. You - my love (G. Zhukovsky - A. Novitsky) - Nikolay Kondratyuk, Vladimir Timokhina
09. Odarka Song from the opera "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube" (S.Gulak-Artemovsky) - Maria Litvinenko-Volgemut
10. Floating boat (Mykola Lysenko - SL. B..) - Mikhail Rakov, Alexander Taranets
11. Nightingale (music and lyrics. M. ML) - Bela Rudenko
12. Zore vechorova (S. Kozak - A. Malyshko) - Alexander Taranets, Vladimir Zarkov
13. Sun nyzen'ko (music and lyrics. Lysenko) - Konstantin Joiner
14. Oh, I will limit Mountains (Kos-Anatolskyi) - Irina Zyabchenko
 
translation by google pls help with the mistakes...
  
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The first collection, as you can see, is focused to opera singing. The choice of exactly this theme as the first one may seem rather strange – but only at the first look. For the thing in question here is masterpieces, thus we have to admit: first truly world-wide glory to Ukrainian singing was brought exactly by opera singers, wasn't it? Do not forget that their repertoire was never limited to classic arias only – all of them performed Ukrainian folk songs as well, and caused no less fascination with them. Or even more...
 
  
  
   
  
 

6.7.11

African Piano

   
William Chapman Nyaho
Senku
Piano Music by Composers of African Descent
2003

Tracks:

Joshua Uzoigwe (NIGERIA) (1946-)

Talking Drums
1 Ukom (6:49)
2 Ilulu (2:45)
3 Egwu Amala (5:22)

Oswald Russell (JAMAICA) (1939-)

Three Jamaican Dances
4 No. 1 (1:02)
5 No. 2 (2:27)
6 No. 3 (1:56)

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (USA) (1932-)

7 Scherzo (9:42)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (ENGLAND) (1875-1912)

8 Deep River (6:20)
from 24 Negro Melodies Op. 59 no. 10

Margaret Bonds (USA) (1913-1972)

9 Troubled Water (4:52)

Gamal Abdel-Rahim (EGYPT) (1924-1988)

10 Variations on
an Egyptian Folksong (6:21)

Robert Nathaniel Dett (USA) (1882-1943)

"In The Bottoms" Suite
11 Prelude: Night (4:25)
12 His Song (3:02)
13 Honey: Humoresque (1:29)
14 Barcarolle: Morning (5:00)
Sample (1:03)
15 Dance: Juba (2:16)

Gyimah Labi (GHANA) (1950-)
16 Earthbeats Op. 22 (9:29)
From Six Dialects in African Pianism
  
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Senku: a Fanti (Ghana) term for a keyboard instrument

Piano Music by Composers of African Descent is extremely varied. The composers show an influence of both African and Western cultures. The African elements may manifest themselves on a melodic, harmonic and rhythmic level, whereas the structure of the work may be more easily identified as Western. On the other hand, composers may use 20th century Western compositional techniques with the general musical aesthetic being African. The melodic, harmonic and percussive qualities of the piano make it the perfect vehicle for the expression of this inter-cultural music.
  
   > get cd here <
  
William H. Chapman Nyaho, a Ghanaian American, graduated from Achimota School, Ghana. He received his degrees from St. Peter's College, Oxford University (UK), the Eastman School and the University of Texas, Austin and at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève. Following a four-year residency as a North
Carolina Visiting Artist, Chapman Nyaho taught at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He was the recipient of the 1998 University of Southwestern Louisiana Distinguished Professor Award and the 1998 Acadiana Arts Council Distinguished Artist Award, and held the Heymann Endowed Professorship.

Chapman Nyaho's performing experience includes recitals in Africa, Europe, North America and the Caribbean. He has performed as soloist with orchestras across the southern United States. Among his engagements, which include performing chamber music, Nyaho performs regularly as duo pianist with the
Nyaho/Garcia Duo which has released a compact disc titled "Aaron Copland: Music For Two Pianos". Chapman Nyaho has been featured on radio and television broadcasts in Ghana, Switzerland, and US National Public Radio. He developed and hosted The Bach Show for KRVS radio in Louisiana.

Chapman Nyaho is presently an independent scholar, teacher and concert pianist residing in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. He is a regular guest clinician at colleges and universities giving lecture-recitals and holding workshops advocating music by composers of the African Diaspora. He also serves as adjudicator for national and international piano competitions. 
  


   
Every now and then a recording comes along that is as important as it is unique.

This is such a recording.

I approached this CD with a desire to explore a back road of art music, in the hopes that I might find a hidden gem of inspiration, or even a piece to perform myself (I am also a pianist). What I found instead was a superhighway of talent and creativity that has somehow remained overlooked by the "mainstream" art music world.

Pianist Nyaho Chapman presents us with an astonishing variety of compositions, ranging from the more conservative "In The Bottoms Suite" of Robert Nathaniel Dett or Margaret Bond's Troubled Water, to the more abstract "Talking Drums" of Joshua Uzoigwe or Earthbeats of Gyimah Labi. Mr. Chapman's performance of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's Scherzo surely proves him as one of the more brilliant pianists on the circuit. The piece is as relentless as it is physically demanding. And, like the other works on this disk, it is recorded with clarity and precision.

I highly recommend this CD to anyone wishing to enrich their musical life.

By Bradley Bolen



3.2.11

Piano


Jordi Maso, piano
Déodat de Séverac
Scenes of Southern France
Cerdaña - En Languedoc
2004

Tracks:

Cerdana (Cinq études pittoresques pour le piano) 1908-11

01. En Tartane (L'arrivée en Cerdagne) 7:23
02. Les fêtes (Souvenirs de Puigcerdà) 7:35
03. Ménétriers et glaneuses (Souvenir d'un pélérinage à Font-Romeu) 6:15
04. Les muletiers devant le Christ de Llivia (Complainte) 7:44
05. Le retour des muletiers 5:15

En Languedoc (1903-04)

06. Vers le mas en fête 8:12
07. Sur l'étang, le soir 7:39
08. A cheval, dans la prairie 3:48
09. Coin de cimetière, au printemps 8:02
10. Le jour de la foire, au mas 6:05
 
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from the booklet:
  
The French composer Déodat de Séverac belonged to a family of long distinction. He was born in 1872 at St Félix de Caraman en Lauragais, in the Haute-Garonne, the son of a distinguished Toulouse painter, Gilbert de Séverac, his first piano teacher. His mother was descended from the Aragon family of Spain, while his great-grandfather had served as naval minister to Louis XVI, the family boasting a descent that went back to the ninth century. The boy studied at the Dominican College of Sorèze, established in 1854 on the site of an ancient Benedictine foundation, before embarking on a degree in law at the university in Toulouse. Before long he was able to move to the Toulouse Conservatoire, where he was a student from 1893 to 1896. On the recommendation of Charles Bordes, a former pupil of César Franck, he was accepted by Franck’s leading disciple, Vincent d’Indy, as a pupil at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, a choice of institution that he soon found preferable to the more rigidly conservative academic discipline of the Paris Conservatoire.

...
  
De Severac wrote his suite Cerdana, described as Five Picturesque Studies for the Piano, between 1908 and 1911. The district known in French as the Cerdagne and in Spanish as Cerdana, straddling the French-Spanish border in the Pyrenees, was originally the home of the Ceretani, from which its name is derived. In later history it included three baronies, Ceret, St-Laurent-de-Cerdans and Puigcerdà. The villages of the upper Cerdagne were ceded to France, together with Roussillon, in 1659, while the ancient capital, Llivia, designated a town and therefore exempted, remained and remains a Spanish enclave, its name derived from the classical Julia Livia. The five pieces of de Severac's suite start with En Tartane, arrival in the Cerdagne in a two-wheel carriage. It begins in open admiration of the countryside, with melodic hints of what is to come, as the journey moves rapidly on. The second piece Les fêtes is described as a reminiscence of Puigcerdà, proclaimed the capital of the Cerdana by Alfonso II in 1177 and on the Spanish side of the frontier which passes through the region. The festival preparations start tentatively, soon leading to livelier music of clear local provenance, with pictorial allusions to the scene of celebration that passes, in a musical language that often suggests that of Debussy, not least in the echo of a distant evening fanfare, as the piece draws to a close. The third of the set, Les menetriers et glaneuses, musicians and gleaners, depicts a pilgrimage to Font-Romeu, now a popular sports and ski resort. The chapel there once held a twelfth-century statue of the Blessed Virgin, while the place itself takes its name from a spring. The musicians play their guitars and, as always, there is more than a trace of Albeniz in the piano writing. In Les muletiers devant le Christ de Llivia, the muleteers before the statue of Christ at Llivia, the bells of the ancient fortified church are heard tolling in a vivid depiction of the scene, as the worshippers offer their moving prayers and petitions. In Le retour des muletiers the muleteers are heard travelling back over the mountain roads, in music essentially of the region, Catalonia and the Spanish Pyrenees, reflected through the prism of Paris.

The five piano pieces that constitute En Languedoc were written in 1903 and 1904. These are less specific in their geographical references, offering more generalised musical illustrations of the region of France known as Languedoc. Vers le mas en fête leads to the farmstead where the festival of the title is to be held, in often serene pianistic textures that are very much an extension of the language of Debussy and, to a lesser extent, of Ravel. Sur l'etang, le soir, illustrates the calm scene on the pond in the evening in generally more transparent textures. This is followed by A cheval, dans la prairie, riding in the open country, graphically illustrated in the rhythm, suggesting the lively movement of the horse, with an occasional pause to survey the countryside, before cantering on. Coin de cimetière, au printemps, a corner of the cemetery in spring, opens meditatively, moving on from serene contemplation in a country churchyard to a climax of romantic feeling, before subsiding into its opening mood. The set ends with Le jour de la foire, au mas, fair-day at the farmstead. This offers a characteristic depiction of the country fair, in piano textures from the world of Debussy and Ravel, always with the suggestion of local colour drawn from de Severac's own part of France, the old province of Languedoc.

Keith Anderson

  
   
wiki

...This music twinkles in a glimmering summer twilight of time, suspended in tranquillity.

27.1.11

My Garden

North End House, Rottingdean (detail) - Thomas Matthews Rooke. 1842 - 1942.
 
     
My Garden
1997

Tracks:

1: Lieder und Gesänge III, Op 77 (Schumann) - No 2: Mein Garten
2: Lieder und Gesänge I, Op 27 (Schumann) - No 4: Jasminenstrauch
3: Sechs Gesänge, Op 107 (Schumann) - No 1: Herzeleid
4: Drei Gesänge, Op 83 (Schumann/Rückert) - No 2: Die Blume der Ergebung
5: Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op 35 (Schumann) - No 04: Erstes Grün
6: Lieder und Gesänge II, Op 51 (Schumann) - No 2: Volksliedchen
7: Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (Wolf) - No 13: Im Frühling
8: Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (Wolf) - No 17: Der Gärtner
9: Eichendorff Lieder (Wolf) - No 08: Nachtzauber
10: Lieder nach Gedichten von J W von Goethe (Wolf) - No 28: Frühling übers Jahr
11: Lieder nach Gedichten von J W von Goethe (Wolf) - No 29: Anakreons Grab
12: Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (Wolf) - No 06: Er ists
13: Le mariage des roses, M80 (Franck)
14: Le temps des lilas (Chausson)
15: Cinq Mélodies «de Venise», Op 58 (Fauré) - No 3: Green
16: Les roses d'Ispahan, Op 39 No 4 (Fauré)
17: Lied (Chabrier/Mendès)
18: Toutes les fleurs (Chabrier)
19: From the red rose (Stanford)
20: Roses of Picardy (Wood)
21: Triolet (Musto)
22: The rose family (Musto)
23: Songs of perfect propriety (Barab) - No 8: One perfect rose
24: Red roses and red noses (Berners)
25: Cabbages, Cabeans and Carrots (Stanley/Allen)

Personnel:

Felicity Lott (soprano)
Graham Johnson (piano)
 
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An anthology, in the original Greek, means a collection of flowers; and the garden tended here by Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson contains many species from around the globe: violets, rosemary, mimosa, periwinkles, lilies, daisies, roses, jasmine, immortelles, sunflowers, snowflowers, saffron, primroses, walnut and orange-tree blossom, laurel, carnations, lilac, strawberries, cornflowers, convolvulus, cyclamen, broom, lilies-of-the-valley, marigold, iris and pinks. And these flowers grace gardens in Germany, France, America and England.

There are six songs each by Schumann and Wolf, and delights from four French composers. In the English part of the disc we range from Haydn Wood's well-known Roses of Picardy to the humorous Red Roses and Red Noses by Lord Berners, a take-off of Thomas Moore's The last rose of summer.

The anthology ends irreverently with Cabbages, Cabeans and Carrots, a music-hall song prefaced in the score with the words: 'I think all these Flower Songs are ridiculous'!
 
 
 A London garden -  - Thomas Matthews Rooke. 1842 - 1942.
 

9.1.11

Oskar

  
Oskar Merikannon kauneimmat
Best of Oskar Merikanto
1993 
 
Tracks:

01 - Kesäillan valssi
02 - Valse lente
03 - Romanssi
04 - Mä oksalla ylimmällä
05 - Annina
06 - Pai, pai paitaressu
07 - Itkevä huilu
08 - Merellä
09 - Tuulan tei
10 - Miss' soutaen tuulessa
11 - Soi vienosti murheeni soitto
12 - Lastentaru takkavalkealla
13 - Idylli
14 - Scherzo
15 - Oi muistatko vielä sen virren
16 - Laatokka
17 - Miksi laulan
18 - Myrskylintu
19 - Jo valkenee kaukainen ranta
20 - Kesäillan idylli
with Izumi Tateno, Raija Kerppo, Kaija Saarikettu, Erkki Rautio,
Ralf Gothoni, Jorma Hynninen, Jaakko Ryhänen, ...
  
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Biography by Robert Cummings

Oskar Merikanto was undoubtedly overshadowed by his Finnish countryman and contemporary, Jean Sibelius. That said, Merikanto was an important musical figure in his sphere still, particularly for his work in opera, song, and church music. He was instrumental in bringing operatic performances to the stage in Finland, and his Pohjan neiti (Maiden of the North) was the first Finnish-language opera ever produced. In the realm of church music Merikanto was active both as an educator and composer. But he will probably be best remembered for his songs. A good many of them from his numerous collections (nearly 150 in all!) and from among various lone efforts scattered throughout his output without opus, are regularly heard in recitals and on recordings. Perusing Merikanto's works list, one is struck by its enormity: for chorus alone there are well over 100 entries (some representing sizable collections), and for piano over 80, a body of work that contains, however, not one sonata or concerto! Merikanto typically wrote short works for solo instruments and voice, but his operas and incidental scores for the theater broke with this miniature-like pattern.

Oskar Merikanto was born in Helsinki, Finland, on August 5, 1868. Like Sibelius, his parents were Swedish speakers. The family name, too, Mattsson, was Swedish, which the father changed to the more Finnish-sounding Merikanto. Young Oskar divulged musical talent early on, with exceptional skills on the organ and piano.

In the period 1887-1888, Merikanto studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory. Even by this time, though, he was already active as a composer, with numerous piano works to his credit, including the Fantasia, for four hands (1885) and Two Träumerei (1887), as well as pieces for organ and songs.

Merikanto concluded his studies in Berlin in 1890-1891. In 1893 his son Aarre was born. He would also become a noted composer, his father being his first teacher and a profound influence in his life. In 1898 the elder Merikanto wrote the aforementioned opera Pohjan neiti, but it was not staged until 1908. From the early twentieth century Merikanto worked to promote opera in Finland, conducting and arranging many major performances.

Merikanto remained quite active in composition throughout his life. Perhaps his most popular sacred work, the hymn Thank you, Lord! from 1924, was among his last. But it still showed his usual mastery and inspiration. Merikanto died in Hausjärvi-Oitti on February 17, 1924.
  
***
  
Merikanto was the first composer in Finland to use Finnish texts in his songs, and this is the cause of the widespread popularity that his songs enjoy even today almost a century after many of them were written. A sympathetic interpretation by the deservedly distinguished Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen adds considerably to the simple beauty of these songs. Merikanto had produced over 150 songs at his death in 1924, many of which are surprisingly Schubertian for a composer who consistently rejected the German influence in favour of developing his own national voice.
  
***
 
  
This is one of these rare records that touched my heart from the first note played till the last one and repeat and again ... not a weak track ... well best of ... I have to admit that I did not know Oskar Merikanto ... yes I don't know much ... but now I do ... I always loved Jorma Kaukonen (I had to make this joke, but its no joke :)) ... and now there is Jorma Hynninen too ... just got it cause it says Finlandia, this label I knew ...  many of his songs have attained folk song status in Finland ... no wonder :) 
Tio Miguel (some time ago) 

  

7.1.11

Jorma

  
Jorma Hynninen
Ilkka Paananen
Elämälle - Songs By Oskar Merikanto

2008

Tracks:

1 Omenankukat (Apple blossom)1:22
2 Linnulle kirkkomaalla (To a Bird in the Churchyard)1:52
3 Suvi-illan vieno tuuli (Summer Evening’s Breeze)1:41
4 Muistellessa (Remembering)3:55
5 Miksi laulan (Why I Sing)1:11
6 Kullan murunen (You Are a Nugget of Gold)1:37
7 Merellä (At Sea)4:13
8 Myrskylintu (Stormbird)3:03
9 Laatokka (Lake Ladoga)3:30
10 Iltakellot (Evening Bells)2:37

Haudoilta-sarja (From the Graves)
11 Valkeat ristit (White Crosses)2:39
12 Laulaja taivaan portilla (A Singer at the Gate of Heaven)1:36
13 Käy kirkkomaata illoin (In the Churchyard at Eventide)4:15
14 Päivännousu kultaa kirkkomaan (Sunrise Gilds the Churchyard)1:58

15 Hyvästi! (Farewell!)1:22
16 Hyvää yötä (Good Night)2:22
17 Hämärissä (In the Twilight)1:26
18 Elämälle (To Life)2:13
19 Annina3:32
20 Illansuussa (At Nightfall)1:57
21 Nocturne2:25
22 Balladi (Ballad)2:38
23 Nuoruuden ylistys (Praise of Youth)1:59
24 Soi vienosti murheeni soitto (Play Softly, Thou Tune of My Mourning)1:54
25 Ma elän! (I Am Alive!)1:29

Personnel:

Jorma Hynninen: Baritone
Ilkka Paananen: Piano
Frans Oskar Merikanto (1868 - 1924)- Composer
  
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Oskar Merikanto was apparently a very popular composer in Finland during the years around 1900; the booklet notes tell of a Helsinki musician touring the countryside and being asked whether there were any other great composers in Helsinki besides Merikanto. Merikanto made a varied living of the sort undertaken by composers in nascent concert scenes, working as a pianist, church organist, "organ inspector" (whatever that was), conductor, critic, and teacher. He wrote about 150 songs, pleasant, foursquare creations with attractive melodies that have drawn comparisons to Paolo Tosti. They're not quite that far toward the popular end of the spectrum, but they don't sound like Sibelius at all, and they show minimal influence from any composer of German lieder after Schubert. Probably the closest comparison would be Tchaikovsky's songs: imagine the Nocturne, track 21, in Russian, and you can imagine that Merikanto started from some of the same Tchaikovskian sources Sibelius did, even if he went in a different direction. More is generally happening in the accompaniment than in the vocal line, and baritone Jorma Hynninen and pianist Ilkka Paananen execute the balance here -- simple, sensuous vocal line underlaid by fairly detailed piano part -- very well. The more serious pieces, such as the cycle of four songs From the Graves, Op. 74 (tracks 11-14), are the most successful, but there are also folk-like pieces (try the slight Suvi-illan vieno tuuli [Summer's Evening Breeze], Op. 87/2, track 3) that will stick with you. ... All texts are in Finnish and English. ~ James Manheim
  
  
Jorma Hynninen is one of the most celebrated Finnish vocal artists. This disc contains the legendary baritone's very personal account of songs by his compatriot Oskar Merikanto (1868-1924). Many of the 25 songs remain to this day among the all-time favourite Finnish songs of any genre (such as the title song of this disc, Elämälle - 'To life').

During his lifetime, Oskar Merikanto was just as popular as Jean Sibelius. He was the co-founder of what would become the Finnish National Opera and composed major contributions to the song and opera repertoire: a real master of melody who incorporated elements of folk music into his works, Merikanto rightly provokes comparisons with such composers as Schubert and Mahler.

Jorma Hynninen has contributed not only to a renewal in the art of interpreting solo songs but also to the creation of contemporary operas by Rautavaara and

Sallinen, to name but two composers. His greatest musical love though has always been Lieder, a genre on which he successfully concentrates on this new recording.

Pianist Ilkka Paananen has appeared numerous times together with Jorma Hynninen and is an equally appreciated Lied partner of Elina Garanca, Dilbèr, Matti Salminen and Gabriel Suovanen.
 
wiki
  

Oskar Merikanto composed himself – especially with his songs - into the hearts of Finnish people; Jorma Hynninen makes the same with his masculine, sensitive voice which has still grown richer.
Pentti Ritolahti, Sana, March 6, 2008
 

27.12.10

Chants d'Auvergne

  
Frederica von Stade
Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne, Vol. I

1982

Tracks:

1 - Baïlèro
2 - Oï, ayaï
3 - La delaïssádo
4 - Passo del prat
5 - Té, l'co, té!
6 - Pour l'Enfant
7 - Bourrées: I. N'aï pas iéu de mîo  II. Lo calhé
8 - Lou coucut
9 - L'Antouéno
10 - Chut, chut
11 - Brezairola
12 - Uno jionto postouro
13 - Lo fiolairé
14 - Bourrées: I. L'aïo dè rotso  II. Ound'onorèn gorda?  III. Obal, din lou Limouzi
  
Personnel:
 
Frederica von Stade: Mezzo Soprano
Composed by: Traditional, Joseph Canteloube
Performed by: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by: Antonio de Almeida 
  
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Frederica von Stade is an internationally known mezzo soprano, known as much for her charm and beauty as for her singing. She possesses what critics have called one of the warmest voices of her generation and has tackled a wide range of repertoire throughout her career. Several contemporary composers have written roles for her. She also spends time championing music education.

Born in 1945 in New Jersey, her father was killed by a land mine in the waning days of World War II, weeks before her birth. Her family traveled and periodically lived abroad in her youth because her mother worked as a secretary for the Central Intelligence Agency. This included extended stays in Italy and Greece. Typically, she spent summers in Far Hills, New Jersey, with her grandmother. She first saw an opera at the age of 16.

Von Stade attended Convent of the Sacred Heart school in suburban Washington., D.C., then spent a year studying music in Paris, working as a nanny and bartender to earn her way. She attended Mannes College of Music in New York, where she studied with teachers including Paul Berl and Otto Guth. After graduation she joined New York's Metropolitan Opera company, and made her debut on January 10, 1970, in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The magic flute). "I was totally green, stagestruck and nervous about being wrong, and I wasn't really a trained musician," she told Brian Kellow of Opera News in a 1995 interview. "[Y]ou just sat in that rehearsal room for five hours and didn't read a paper or a magazine or knit or do anything. You sat and listened. You watched and learned and assimilated."



25.12.10

Chants d'Auvergne

  
Joseph Canteloube
Chants d'Auvergne

2004

Tracks:


1. La pastoura als camps (The Shepherdess in the Fields) - 2:47
2. Bailero - 5:14
3. L'aio de rotso (Spring Water) - 3:09
4. Ound' onoren gorda? (Where shall we find our flock?) - 2:34
5. Obal din lou Limouzi (Down in Limousin) - 1:15
6. Pastourelle (Shepherdess) - 3:19
7. L'Antoueno (Antoine) - 3:16
8. N'ai pas ieu de mio (I have no girl) - 4:41
9. Lo calhe (The Quail) - 1:43
10. La delaissado (Deserted) - 4:08
11. Passo pel prat (Go through the meadow) - 3:23
12. Lou boussu (The Hunchback) - 2:25
13. Brezairola (Lullaby) - 3:15
14. Malurous qu'o uno fenno (Unfortunate he who has a wife) - 1:33
15. Jou l'pount d'o Mirabel (By the Bridge of Mirabel) - 4:00
16. Oi ayai (Oh! Ah!) - 3:03
17. Lou coucut (The Cuckoo) - 1:52
18. Quand z'eyro petitoune (When I was little) - 2:57
19. La-haut, sur le rocher (Up there, on the rock) - 3:48
20. Uno jionto postouro (A pretty shepherdess) - 2:41
21. Lou diziou be (They said) - 1:21

Personnel:
 
Véronique Gens: Soprano
Composed by: Traditional, Joseph Canteloube
Performed by: Lille National Orchestra
Conducted by: Jean-Claude Casadesus 
  
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Once you accept the fundamental premise -- Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne are gussied-up folk songs -- they become the cutest little things in the world. Of course, not everybody can accept the premise since it involves accepting, first, that the folk song is a legitimate vehicle for high culture, and second, that a little sentimentality never hurt anybody. For listeners for whom Schubert's lieder are the only possible songs, Canteloube's Chants will seem far too close to kitsch for aesthetic comfort. But listeners who can accept the artless beauty of the tunes and the warm orchestral syrup in which they are encased, Canteloube's Chants are just the thing when Puccini's Madame Butterfly becomes too much.

There have been many terrific recordings of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne over the years, but this recording by soprano Véronique Gens accompanied by Jean-Claude Casadesus leading the Orchestre National de Lille can takes its place among the best. With many impressive recordings of repertoire from Rameau through Mozart to her credit, Gens may at first seem an unlikely choice for performing gussied-up folk songs, but her darkly lustrous and deep-chested tone, along with her birth in the Auvergne region make, her a natural for the part.

And indeed, while one can tell immediately that the singer is Gens, one never gets the sense that she's condescending to the repertoire, but rather doing exactly the repertoire she wants to do and enjoying herself completely while doing it. Casadesus is a faithful accompanist, but this is emphatically Gens' show and, for those who can accept the fundamental premise, pure pleasure. Naxos' sound is rich, deep, warm, and round. 

~ James Leonard, Rovi 


Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957): Chants d’Auvergne

The mountainous province of Auvergne, its name derived from the Gallic tribe of the Arverni, victorious under Vercingétorix in resistance to Julius Caesar, has held an important position in the history of France, from its conquest in 1190 by Philippe Auguste. In the Middle Ages there remained a careful balance of power between local feudal lords, until Auvergne became crown territory in the sixteenth century. The region has its own patois and its own cultural traditions. It was from Auvergne that the family of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret stemmed. He himself was born in 1879 at Annonay and spent his childhood in the countryside of Malaret, in the south of Auvergne. It was there that he found his first interest in folk-song. As he later wrote ‘Les chants paysans s’élèvent bien souvent au niveau de l’art le plus pur, par le sentiment et l’expression, sinon par la forme’ (The songs of the peasants very often reach the level of the purest art in feeling and expression, if not in form). In 1900, after the death of his mother, he went to Paris, where he had piano lessons with Amélie Daetzer, a pupil of Chopin. Two years later he began his study of counterpoint with César Franck’s pupil Vincent d’Indy, later entering the Schola Cantorum that d’Indy had established, an institution of sound musical principles, but one that deliberately avoided the regulations and formalities of the Conservatoire. The Schola Cantorum gave particular encouragement to the development of regional musical
traditions, an aim that was to suit very well the views of the monarchist Charles Maurras and Action française. Here Canteloube studied fugue, composition and orchestration, meeting another disciple of Franck, Charles Bordes, whose mismanagement of the affairs of the Schola later led to his own bankruptcy and resignation, and the composer Déodat de Séverac, a regional composer of similar ambitions to his own. He was later to write biographies of both Vincent d’Indy and Déodat de Séverac.

Joseph Canteloube never won any great outstanding success as a composer, although his music was heard in Paris. Among his first compositions was a setting of Verlaine’s Colloque sentimental, for voice and string quartet, followed by other works for voice and instrumental ensemble. His opera Le Mas, largely written by 1913, was staged in Paris only in 1929, a second stage work remained incomplete, and a third, Vercingétorix, had a prompter staging in Paris in 1933. He wrote a relatively small number of orchestral works and chamber music, devoting time increasingly to his folk-song researches. During the Occupation he was in Vichy, working for the Pétain Government on the revival of interest in folkmusic, an aim that had, for him, and for others associated with Action française, an ethical, social and political importance.

Since his death in 1957 Canteloube has become widely known for his folk-song arrangements, in particular his Chants d’Auvergne for voice and instrumental ensemble, a series of five publications, the first two written in 1924, the third and fourth in 1927 and 1930, respectively, and the last in 1955. These settings, which have won increasing popularity, aptly present the original songs, with orchestral accompaniments that often suggest the instruments of the countryside. The songs, enhanced rather than damaged by their setting, speak for themselves.

Keith Anderson
  
Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret (21 October 1879 – 4 November 1957)


29.5.10

Kazakhstan

 
Әсем ән мен тәтті күй төгілгенде...
Тәттімбет атындағы академиялық халық аспаптары оркестрі

Tracks:

1. Тәттімбет, «Сарыжайлау»
2. Түркеш, «Көңіл ашар»
3. И. Жақанов, «Қарағанды вальсі»
4. Тәттімбет, «Молқара»
5. Құрманғазы, «Адай»
6. С.Сейфуллин, «Тау ішінде»
7. Сүгір, «Аққу»
8. Байжігіт, «Келіншек»
9. Е. Үсенов, «Кузгі әуен»
10. Тәттімбет, «Азамат кожа»
11. Н.Тілендиев, «Атадан мұра»
12. Жаяу Мұса, «Ақ сиса»
13. Естай, «Құсни - Қорлан»
14. Тоқа, «Сарыжайлау»
15. К.Күмісбеков, «Биші кайың»
16. К.Салықов, «Сарыарка»
17. Тәттімбет, «Көш жанаған»
18. Құрманғазы, «Серпер»
19. И.Жақанов, «Балқантау»
20. М.Жанболатов, «Сағындым Сарыарқаны»
21. Ықылас, «Жез киік»
22. Құрманғазы, «Сарыарқа»
 
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When poured beautiful songs and beautiful melodies...
 
This album includes songs and melodies of Kazakh folk composers in the performance of the academic orchestra of folk instruments name Tattimbeta, Karaganda. Chief conductor - D. Ukibay.
 

Gardening

  
Gardening Classics: 16 Perennial Favorites for All Seasons

Tracks:

01 . Respighi -  GLI UCCELLI. The Birds. Prelude.
02 . Beethoven -  VIOLIN SONATA NO.5 in F major Spring
03 . Cilea, Francisco -  La dolcissima effigie. Placido DOMINGO
04 . Delius  -  ON HERING THE FIRST CUCKOO IN SPRING
05 . Tchaikovsky -  THE NUTCRACKER.  Waltz of the Flowers
06 . Gershwin -  PORKY AND BESS.  Summertime.
07 . Rimsky-Korsakov -  TSAR SULTAN.  Flight of the Bumble-Bee
08 . Mendelssohn -  AUF FLÜGELN DES GESANGES (ON WINGS OF SONG).
09 . Vivaldi -  THE FOUR SEASONS.  Autumn. La Caccia
10 . Schumann -  Du bist wie eine Blume. Kiri te KANAWA.
11 . Vaughan Williams -  THE LARK ASCENDING
12 . Tarrega -  RECUERDOS DE LA ALHAMBRA.
13 . Vivaldi -  THE FOUR SEASONS. Winter. Largo
14 . Delius -  THE WALK TO THE PARADISE GARDEN.
15 . Copland, Aaron -  RODEO. Hoe Down.
16 . Bach, J.S -  COFFEE CANTATA BMV 211. `Ei, wer schmeckt der coffee süsse'
 
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"Happiness is to hold flowers in both hands."
Japanese saying