MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS

Postcage
Detailed track-list at end of review
Performers: Christina Fong, Paul Hersey, Glenn Freeman, Chance Operations Collective of Kalamazoo, Michael Kornacki, Karen Krummel, Gwendolyn Faasen, Keith Fredlund, Barbara McCargar
rec. no information provided.
OGREOGRESS 885767203839 [124:00]

Experience Classicsonline


This disc proffers more than two hours of “post-Cageian” music; that is, music composed after the death of John Cage. Interestingly, much of it seems to have no link to Cage’s style, but these are all “new music” works by a wide variety of composers.
 
As with any such compilation, each listener will find works they like and others they prefer skipping over. I found a number to be simply annoying - one for what seemed to be household appliances in particular - but many are moving and merit repeated listens. Unfortunately, as I have written in the past, the DVD-A format makes it harder to listen to selected tracks. It’s impossible to rip the music to a computer, so you need to either program the playback on a DVD drive, or manually skip over the tracks you don’t care for. It’s worth noting that this disc is also available by download in MP3 format.
 
So, given the eclectic nature of this disc, I’ve chosen to discuss a handful of works that I found especially notable.
 
Maria de Alvear's Fuerzas is an attractive, occasionally tonal work for solo violin, with a Bartókian sound. Seemingly amorphous, this long work - more than 17 minutes - merits hearing more than once. This is certainly one of the best works on the disc.
 
Dionysis Boukouvalas's Meditation for piano is an odd work, with much silence - a Cageian idea. Listening to this work, one is constantly drawn outward to the sounds around the listener, yet brought back to the music occasionally when notes are played. This is not just piano played on the keys, but also a variety of other noises are created with the piano. We also get some humming, tapping and other sounds, such as speaking (in Tibetan?). There is more silence than music in these 14 minutes. This is an intriguing piece, but ultimately one that just fades away after listening; it has little structure.
 
Walter Horn's Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde are perhaps the most Cageian works here. The piano parts of these brief pieces recall Cage's early piano works. The overall tone is interesting.
 
David Kotlowy's Under Stars is soft and subtle. It is laid out for two violins and piano. Harold Budd's atmospheric works are recalled especially in the sparse piano arpeggios that ground the violins. The violins sound a bit harsh, perhaps too present, but the music is very moving.
 
John Prokop's work for 1 or 7 pianists, in a version for 7 pianists, is a cryptic piece that sounds like seven pianists each playing a score from a Morton Feldman work, but all together. It's hard to distinguish the different pianos, but the way they fit together is very engaging. Listening to this work several times reveals an intriguing yet subtle tonal progression.
 
The final work, David Toub's dharmachakramudra, is an attractive Feldmanesque piece where the strings seem to breathe, as the vibraphone punctuates their breaths. In only eight minutes, and with just vibraphone, viola and cello, this work provides a complex sound-world.
 
All in all, fans of new music will find this disc interesting. As I said, it’s a bit of a grab bag, and many listeners will prefer other works than I did.  

Kirk McElhearn
Kirk writes about more than just music on his blog Kirkville.

Track-List
1. Maria de Alvear: Fuerzas (1994) for violin [17:26]
2. Arved Ashby: For Morton Feldman (1992) for violin, piano and glockenspiel [5:16]
3. David Beardsley: November Test Pattern, the ecstasy of electric trees weeping in the twilight including recumbent bright insects and relevant footnotes (2009) for just intonation sine tones [10:00]
4. Dionysis Boukouvalas: Meditation (2010) for piano 14:29
5. Marc Chan: I Sail'd Out To Sea (2009) for 3 voices and instruments [11:00]
6. J.R. Dooley: for violin and piano (2010) [3:45]
7. Jürg Frey: Viola, Klavier (1997) [5:33]
8. Walter Horn: Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010) for piano, viola and vibraphone: I. [2:00]
9. Walter Horn: Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010) for piano, viola and vibraphone: II. [0:54]
10. Walter Horn: Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010) for piano, viola and vibraphone: III. [1:46 ]
11. Walter Horn: Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010) for piano, viola and vibraphone: IV. [0:45]
12. Walter Horn: Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010) for piano, viola and vibraphone: V. [2:32]
13. David Kotlowy: Under Stars (2006) for 2 violins and piano [12:05]
14. Sergio Luque: My Idea of Fun (2010) for clarinet, percussion and viola [6:44]
15. Robert Moran, Philip Glass: Modern Love Waltz (1977/2010) version for 8 keyboards minus piano [4:21]
16. John Prokop: for 1 or 7 pianists (1997) for 7 pianists [6:48 ]
17. Sebastián Jatz Rawicz: 4 Recipes from Antimusical Book of Recipes (2010) IV. Electronic Antimusic [2:29]
18. Sebastián Jatz Rawicz: 4 Recipes from Antimusical Book of Recipes (2010) XIV. Antimusic of the Spheres [2:29]
19. Sebastián Jatz Rawicz: 4 Recipes from Antimusical Book of Recipes (2010) XXI. Disco Antimusic [2:29]
20. Sebastián Jatz Rawicz: 4 Recipes from Antimusical Book of Recipes (2010) XXIX. Merengue Antimusic [2:29]
21. David Toub: dharmachakramudra (2010) for vibraphone, viola and cello [8:00] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file