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        The Mutable Beauty of Bach's B minor Mass
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        The Mutable Beauty of Bach’s B minor Mass

        By Justin Davidson, eMusic Contributor

        Bach's B minor Mass is a masterpiece that by rights shouldn't really exist. A setting of Catholic liturgy by a Lutheran composer, it seems to have been willed into being for no clear purpose. Though it's a work of formidable coherence, Bach tinkered with it over the course of 20 years, gathering its bits and pieces practically until his death. Meanwhile, musical fashion had moved on, and the younger generation surely thought of him as… more »

        Classical Music For A Modern World
        7

        Classical Music For A Modern World

        By Seth Colter Walls, eMusic Contributor

        Sure, we play Bach, Beethoven and Mozart -- though we also dig the early music of Tallis, chance works by Cage, arias from Verdi and John Adams, as well as the composers on New Amsterdam records. Everything here was released after 2008, too, which is another way of declaring that notes written down on paper are still some of the most exciting ones to hear in all of contemporary music. more »

        Interview: Joel Frederiksen
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        Interview: Joel Frederiksen

        By Jayson Greene, Managing Editor

        The contemplative, pastoral folk music of Nick Drake is oddly timeless. Listening to an album like Nick Drake's Pink Moon, it is difficult its creator anywhere other than perched beneath a shady tree in an English countryside, miles from civilization. It was this pre-modern whiff that attracted the operatic bass singer and lute player Joel Frederiksen. Frederiksen, a noted interpreter of Renaissance lute music, stumbled across Drake in his earlier coffee-shop folk-singer days, and never forgot… more »

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        Journeys album cover Play
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        2013 | Sony Classical

        Emerson String Quartet, Journeys

        2013 | Label: Sony Classical
        Steve Holtje By Steve Holtje eMusic Contributor

        It’s surprising that the Emersons haven’t previously recorded any Schoenberg, considering the ensemble has never shied away from 20th century repertoire, and even moreso that their first choice is not a string quartet, but his 1899 string sextet, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4.

        It’s paired, in apt — and not quite unprecedented — programming, with Tchaikovsky’s 1890 (revised 1891-92) String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70, Souvenir de Florence. The album title attempts to conceptually link the two works; the Tchaikovsky is a journey because the main theme… more »

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        2013 | Mercury Classics

        Brooklyn Rider, A Walking Fire

        2013 | Label: Mercury Classics
        John Schaefer By John Schaefer eMusic Contributor

        The string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider is an offshoot of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and they follow in that ensemble’s path of cross-cultural music. A Walking Fire is a musical journey that begins in Romania, with a suite called “Culai” by the violist and composer Ljova, and ends in Iran with “Three Miniatures for String Quartet,” by Brooklyn Rider’s own violinist Colin Jacobsen. In between, the quartet plays a major piece from the string quartet repertoire, Bela Bartok’s String Quartet #2. This format — mixing a “standard”… more »

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        2013 | Mercury Classics

        Olafur Arnalds, For Now I Am Winter

        2013 | Label: Mercury Classics
        John Schaefer By John Schaefer eMusic Contributor

        The Icelandic composer Olafur Arnalds writes richly evocative, almost cinematic works in a style probably best described as “electroacoustic chamber music.” Not to be confused with his cousin, the singer/songwriter Olof Arnalds (her recordings are also worth checking out, though), Arnalds is part of the new breed of (mostly northern) European composers who draw on equal parts post-minimalism, post-rock and film music. Fans of Max Richter, Dustin O’Halloran, Sylvain Chauveau, Hauschka and Johann Johannsson will find in Arnalds a kindred spirit. New York composer/pianist Nico Muhly, a frequent collaborator… more »

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        2013 | Bridge Records, Inc. / The Orchard

        Elliott Carter, Elliott Carter, Vol. 9

        2013 | Label: Bridge Records, Inc. / The Orchard
        Daniel Felsenfeld By Daniel Felsenfeld eMusic Contributor

        There are ghosts on this record. Of course, the gaping maw left by the recent death of Elliott Carter — just shy of his 104th birthday, mind you — still echoes. But there is another spectre here, that of Charles Rosen, not only one of Carter’s staunchest advocates and one of the world’s great writers whose topic happened to be classical music, but among our accomplished and special pianists. So it is unsurprising that the collaboration on Carter’s ferocious mid-’60s Piano Concerto is one for the books, and Bridge has… more »

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        Classical Music For A Modern World
        7

        Classical Music For A Modern World

        By Seth Colter Walls, eMusic Contributor

        Sure, we play Bach, Beethoven and Mozart -- though we also dig the early music of Tallis, chance works by Cage, arias from Verdi and John Adams, as well as the composers on New Amsterdam records. Everything here was released after 2008, too, which is another way of declaring that notes written down on paper are still some of the most exciting ones to hear in all of contemporary music. more »

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