Kevin Cole, National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, David Alan Miller – Gershwin, Joan Tower & Steven Stucky: Works for Piano & Orchestra (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Kevin Cole, National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, David Alan Miller – Gershwin, Joan Tower & Steven Stucky: Works for Piano & Orchestra (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:36 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos

This album presents three classic Gershwin pieces heard in premiere recordings of the new Gershwin Critical Edition. The edition seeks to create the most accurate representation of the composer’s intentions using all existing manuscripts and other sources, such as piano rolls. In the case of Rhapsody in Blue the edition is based on Ferde Grofé’s svmphonic arrangement though 44 measures from the original jazz band version are included. Also featured are the Second Rhapsody and the Cuban Overture, alongside Joan Tower’s propulsive study in rhythm and texture, and Steven Stucky’s ghostly waltz evocations.

(more…)

Read more

National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, David Alan Miller – Harbison, Ruggles & Stucky: Orchestral Works (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, David Alan Miller – Harbison, Ruggles & Stucky: Orchestral Works (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:25 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos

With eighteen works in his repertoire all in all, Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) is far from the most productive of American composers. On the contrary, he was one of the most insolent, grating – in personal terms, you understand – and inflexible composers, in his search for a language which was all his own. Ruggles detested all his peers apart from Charles Ivre, his admiration for whom was reciprocated. And coming in at just fifteen minutes, the Sun-Treader of 1932 is by far his longest work! It’s an intense moment of orchestral concentration, serious, fiery, brutal and fascinating – and yet its bitterness is so lyrical. The Second Concerto for Orchestra (2004) by Steven Stucky (1949-2016) is much more accessible, and it landed its composer a prestigious Pulitzer Prize, following in the footsteps of such predecessors as Ives, Hanson, Copland, Menotti, Barber, Carter, Adams, Reich and many others of the same stripe. The album closes with the Fourth Symphony by John Harbison (born 1938) – another Pulitzer winner, as it happens – which was written in 2003, in a much more generous style, making it surely easier to get into than Ruggles and even than Stucky, while offering many welcome surprises. For sure, America’s recent output deserves much more than the benevolent disdain in which it is held by the intelligentsia of Europe. The National Orchestral Institute of the University of Maryland plays all the pieces here: an ensemble made up of the best students, whose excellent quality is nothing short of stupefying.

(more…)

Read more

National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic & David Alan Miller – Gershwin, Harbison, Tower & Piston: Orchestral Works (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic & David Alan Miller – Gershwin, Harbison, Tower & Piston: Orchestral Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:28 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos

This program represents American orchestral music in all of its verve and expressive variety. Following the sensational success of Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin’s Concerto in F was his first foray away from jazz bands into the concert hall, recorded here for the first time in a new critical edition by Timothy Freeze based on the composer’s own notation and performances. John Harbison’s Remembering Gatsby is a foxtrot that evokes the sonorities of 1920s dance bands, while Joan Tower’s Sequoia reflects her fascination with these silent giants of the tree world. Walter Piston’s contribution to the development of 20th-century American music cannot be underestimated, and his Fifth Symphony successfully blends twelve-tone modernity with reflective profundity and a finale that evokes a spirit of joy and optimism.

(more…)

Read more

David Alan Miller, Dogs Of Desire – Michael Daugherty: This Land Sings (Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie) (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

David Alan Miller, Dogs Of Desire – Michael Daugherty: This Land Sings (Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:51 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos

In This Land Sings, GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has created an original musical tribute to the singer-songwriter and political activist Woody Guthrie (1912–1967). Traveling the backroads of America from coast to coast with a guitar and harmonica, Woody Guthrie performed folk songs of love, wandering and social justice during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Daugherty has composed his own original songs and instrumental interludes that give haunting expression, ironic wit and contemporary relevance to political, social and environmental themes from Guthrie’s era. Under the baton of GRAMMY Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony’s new music ensemble Dogs of Desire, joined by soprano Annika Socolofsky and baritone John Daugherty, give a poignant and rousing performance.

(more…)

Read more
%d bloggers like this: