24 Preludes In Quarter-Tone System (Excerpts) (1934/70)
Charles Ives
Three Quarter-Tone Pieces For Two Pianos (1903- 1923)
Three Page Sonata (1905) 7:34
Ivan Wyschnegradsky– Etude Sur Le "Carré Magique Sonore" Op. 40
Piano – Josef Christof, Steffen Schleiermacher
Mostrando postagens com marcador Steffen Schleiermacher. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Steffen Schleiermacher. Mostrar todas as postagens
3.3.22
IVAN WYSCHNEGRADSKY, CHARLES IVES : Quarter Tone Pieces (Josef Christof-Steffen Schleiermacher) (2006) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
26.3.20
MORTON FELDMAN : The Late Piano Works, Vol. 1 – Triadic Memories (Steffen Schleiermacher) (2008) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Triadic Memories is one of Morton Feldman's most popular and frequently performed works for piano. Here, more than is usual in his music, Feldman uses the repetition of patterns and gestures. The repetitions are rarely exact -- they are characterized by very subtle rhythmic variations -- but almost every gesture, whether large or small, is repeated a few or many times. The repeated figures, while all being quiet and relatively simple and brief, vary in their length, structure, and texture. The unpredictability of the number of repetitions, the asymmetry of the repeated figures, the avoidance of a regular pulse, and the subtlety with which Feldman alters the repetitions keep the music continually intriguing for the attentive listener. Because of its use of discernible repeating patterns, Triadic Memories may be the Feldman work that's closest to the popular understanding of minimalism, although the music sounds absolutely nothing like that of Glass or Reich or Riley. While Triadic Memories is more eventful than much of Feldman's work, its quiet, isolated but related events occurring in a vast temporal landscape create an effect of unhurried serenity that's a trademark of the composer's.The composer gives the pianist considerable leeway in determining the tempo, to the extent that the recorded performances have durations ranging from 74 minutes (Jean-Luc Fafchamps on Sub Rosa) to two hours and four minutes (Sabine Liebner on Oehms Classics). Clocking in at 80 minutes, Steffen Schleiermacher's interpretation is among the more expeditious. His reading is thoughtful and carefully considered, with each note placed with sensitivity in relation to its neighbors. Schleiermacher's reading is wonderfully fluid, and the speed at which he plays creates an organic sense of wave-like motion. It's intriguing to imagine how a very slow performance would come off, but Schleiermacher's is a fully persuasive version of a piece that could have a number of very different but valid interpretations. MGD's natural, unprocessed sound is, as is typical for the label, immaculate and vivid. Stephen Eddins Tracklist + Credits :
MORTON FELDMAN : The Late Piano Works, Vol. 3 – Piano • Palais De Mari (Steffen Schleiermacher) (2009) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Along with slowly cycling gestures, haunting sonorities, and soft dynamics, the late piano works of Morton Feldman are usually noteworthy for their extreme length. The compositions on the first two volumes of Steffen Schleiermacher's series for MDG, Triadic Memories (timed at 80:44) and For Bunita Marcus (71:48), fall into this category of music on a vast scale. In contrast to them, the two pieces on the third volume, Piano (31:57), and Palais de Mari (22:49), are fairly short for Feldman, and listeners who want to explore his keyboard music in a somewhat more manageable timeframe may choose to start with them. The same spaciousness and quietude of the other works can be found here, and Schleiermacher's sensitivity and control assure that the rarefied moods and delicate sounds are evenly handled throughout both pieces. Thanks to the unprocessed and fully natural audio signal, all of the nuances of Schleiermacher's touch are captured, yet there is also a slight background sound that apparently comes from the performance space, not from any defect in the all-digital recording. Listeners may find that this is only a mild distraction and easy to get past once the music takes hold. This important series is recommended for all Feldman aficionados and anyone interested in the sublime expressions of his late period. Blair Sanderson Tracklist + Credits :
25.3.20
JOHN CAGE : Complete Piano Music Vol. 9 (Etudes Australes) 2002 / 3CD / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
A primary tenet in John Cage's philosophy lay in his desire to disengage his ego from the process of composition, and many of his works demonstrate his ingenuity in devising means of accomplishing that goal. In his Études australes, and in several other works from the 1970s, he lay starmaps over staff paper and let the location of stars and their relative spatial relationships determine pitches and their relative temporal relationships. The wide placement of the pitches over the keyboard makes it a work that does not fall easily under the fingers under any circumstances, but Cage's instructions make it even more demanding: the score is written on four staves, the top two (approximately the top half of the keyboard) for the right hand, and the bottom two staves (approximately the bottom half of the keyboard) for the left, with the stipulation that the hands not "help" each other by switching to each other's staves for especially wide leaps. That requirement makes it a piece of ferocious difficulty, an element that's not captured by an audio recording in which the listener cannot see the athleticism and virtuosity that's required to pull it off.
In each of its 32 movements, Cage has the pianist depress several keys with rubber wedges so their strings resonate throughout, adding a textural layer of spectral haze. He used the I Ching to determine some musical parameters, but left a significant number of details to the discretion of the performer, including tempos, dynamics, and articulations. This latitude allows for remarkably diverse range of interpretations, particularly in the length of the performances. The recorded versions range from 112 minutes (Claudio Crismani) to 260 minutes (Sabine Liebner). Steffen Schleiermacher's 2002 recording, at 204 minutes, splits the difference, but is closer to the long side. Liebner reasoned that the spatial relations of the star maps should be mirrored precisely in the temporal relationships of the music, so in her version each page of the score lasts precisely the same length, and the result is a performance with little differentiation between movements. Schleiermacher is sensitive to the spatial implications of the score layout, but is not as strictly bound by it; his movements range from four to eight minutes, with discernible variety in the character of the movements. The performance is notable for Schleiermacher's embrace of the composer's assumption that the pianist will use the openness if the notation to personally discover and convey meaning and beauty in the music's execution. MDG unprocessed sound is typically immaculate and detailed but also warmly realistic. A caveat is that the resonating strings are often barely, if at all audible, so the overall impact of the recording misses some of the color and sonic mystery Cage built into the piece. by Stephen Eddins
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MARGARET WHITING — Sings the Jerome Kern Song Book (1960-2002) RM | Serie : LP Reproduction | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Given Margaret Whiting's limitations as a stylist, you certainly wouldn't expect an album of Jerome Kern-penned Broadway standards t...
