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09.20.13 Spotlight 0

Paul Lewis: A Gorgeous Gallop Into the Infinite

By Justin Davidson, eMusic Contributor

At a recent late-night recital, Paul Lewis sat a piano in a penthouse party space and played one of Schubert's last works, the Sonata in A, D. 959, as if he were consoling everyone in the room over the composer's early death. At such close quarters, the audience, seated at candlelit café tables, could hear the Steinway's feline purr and the pianist's grunts. They could make out the shadows that dappled each glowing note. In… more »

07.19.13 Radio Program 8

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 »

08.20.13 Spotlight 0

Conrad Tao and Timo Andres: The Past is Prologue

By Justin Davidson, eMusic Contributor

Some young composers have had enough of the future; it's finally time for the past. Impatient with avant-gardes, clean slates, or radical reinventions, they sift lovingly through their influences, trying them on rather than laboring to shed them. The phenomenal teenaged pianist-composer Conrad Tao has titled his first full CD Voyages, but it's really about building a habitat out of scraps he's picked up here and there. He programs his own delicate aphorisms alongside those… more »

Ave Maria: Gregorian Chant

Seraphic Fire

Seraphic Fire Media

Seraphic Fire, Ave Maria: Gregorian Chant

Label: Seraphic Fire Media

By Steve Holtje eMusic Contributor

09.03.13 The Florida-based vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire has long been noted for its programming, and Ave Marial is its greatest achievement yet. The Ave Maria title accurately reflects the album’s devotion to music about the Virgin Mary, but the Gregorian Chant subtitle requires further elucidation: Of the 18 tracks here, eight are not chant (seven polyphonic works, one chordal piece) and at least three of the chants (two Ambrosian, one Iberian) are definitely outside the slippery category of “Gregorian.” Even within that category, we get a broadly defined array.

This is a… more »

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Night Sessions

The Dowland Project

2013 | ECM NEW

The Dowland Project, Night Sessions

2013 | Label: ECM NEW

By John Schaefer eMusic Contributor

08.06.13 The Dowland Project features the voice of John Potter, former member of the renowned Hilliard Ensemble and one of England’s most thoughtful and expressive singers of both early music and considerably more modern fare. As the name indicates, The Dowland Project began as a way to reinterpret some of the timeless songs of the Elizabethan composer John Dowland, and included contributions from Stephen Stubbs on lute and baroque guitar, Maya Homburger on baroque violin and then, in a gently subversive and totally effective touch, the modern bass of Barry Guy… more »

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Group 180

1983 | Hungaroton / The Orchard

Group 180, Group 180

1983 | Label: Hungaroton / The Orchard

By John Schaefer eMusic Contributor

08.06.13 Group 180 was not just Hungary’s foremost contemporary music ensemble; for many years, until their breakup in 1990, they were one of Eastern Europe’s lifelines to the sounds of contemporary Western European and American music. Taking advantage of a relatively porous Iron Curtain in Hungary in the late ’70s and ’80s, Group 180 introduced the music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich to new audiences, and also championed emerging Hungarian composers who were likewise creating music that incorporated repetition, electronics, and world music influences. This collection is an excellent example… more »

Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1 album cover

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Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1

Chris Thile

2013 | Nonesuch

Chris Thile, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1

2013 | Label: Nonesuch

By Hilary Saunders eMusic Contributor

08.06.13 MacArthur Genius Grant winner, Punch Brothers frontman, Nickel Creek singer and mandolin player Chris Thile surprisingly, and unabashedly, hails Johann Sebastian Bach as one of his most important musical influences. In the liner notes of his new album, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, he specifically mentions Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s 1981 rerecording of the Goldberg Variations as the album that “humanized” classical music for him. While Thile has collaborated with a number of high-caliber orchestral musicians like violinist Hilary Hahn and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he tackles three Bach violin… more »