American Sonatas

Track Listings

1. Tracks 1-2: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Leonard Bernstein.

2. Tracks 3-5: Piano Sonata, Aaron Copland.

3. Tracks 6-7: Piano Sonata #1, Brian Pearson.

4. Tracks 8-9: Nocturnes for solo piano, Brian Pearson.

Editorial Reviews
Melinda Bargreen, Seattle Times, May 24, 2001.
"...Supercharged but immaculate recording of Copland's Piano Sonata, Bernstein's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano..."

R.M. Campbell, Seattle P-I, January 11, 2002.
"The playing possesses admirable insight and pianistic prowess."

Album Description
This album contains works by three American composers, featuring Copland's seminal and important piano sonata dating from 1939-41. Bernstein wrote his clarinet sonata while still a student, and yet it remains a staple of the repertoire for clarinet. Brian Pearson, born in 1956, combines traditional tonality with eclectic musical influences. Pianist Judith Cohen received her training at the Chicago Musical College and at the University of Washington. She serves as artistic director of The Governor's Chamber Music Series in Washington State and tours both North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber player.Clarinetist Eugene Zoro trained at the Eastman School and is currently Professor of Music at Western Washington University.

American Sonatas

Tracks:

I. Legend
II. Nocturne
III. Quasi-Variations: Scenes From A Young Life
I. Summer Dreams
II. Brutal, Fast
III. Adagio
IV. In Memory Of Joe Venuti
I. A Piacere, Drammatico-Allegro Con Fuoco
II. Andante
III. Like A Shiver-Attacca
IV. Moderato, Risoluto, All'arabesca
I. Allegro Brillante
II. White Night
III. Arabesque
IV. Jota

Customer Reviews:

Forty Years of Bolcom Violin Music.......2006-05-13

Hard on the heels of three earlier Naxos releases of music by one of America's best composers, William Bolcom (b. 1938) -- including the transcendent 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' -- we have here his four violin and piano sonatas performed by a married violin/piano duo, Solomia Soroka and Arhtur Greene, who are colleagues of Bolcom's at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The first, written in 1956 when Bolcom was a freshman at the University of Washington, is astonishingly assured. (He did revise it many years later but says this was mostly just to excise some repetitive passages.) Its three movements culminate in a ten-minute set of variations subtitled 'Scenes from a Young Life,' based on a Beethovenian theme which still somehow manages to sound like an American folksong. Stylistic changes are wrung on the theme and it ends with a serene restatement, almost hymnlike, interrupted by a manic bitonal scalar expostulation by the two instrumentalists.

Sonata No. 2 (1978) was dedicated to the memory of the great jazz violinist, Joe Venuti, who had died while he was composing it. It was written for Sergiu Luca, who had been closely associated with Venuti. The first movement, called 'Summer Dreams,' is a swinging blues with a wild middle section. This is followed by 'Brutal, fast' which is tempestuously virtuosic for both players; it is almost Bartokian in its ferocity. III is an inward Adagio that ends in an ecstatic hymn. (Bolcom has the ability to write the simplest music that yet expresses deep feelings.) IV is directly influenced by the music of Venuti and is a sometimes dreamy, sometimes volatile 'Venutian salsa.'

The Third Sonata (1993) was commissioned to honor the 75th birthday of fabled violin teacher, Dorothy DeLay, by the Aspen Music Festival, where she had been a guiding presence for many years, and was premiered by one of her eminent pupils, Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg. Subtitled 'Sonata Stramba' -- 'stramba' is Italian for 'weird' -- it is a four-movement, twenty-minute piece that is expressionist in impact until the fourth movement which sounds for all the world like a Piazzolla tango refracted through Bolcom's musical lens.

Sonata No. 4 (1996) has a spiky allegro first movement followed by II, 'White Night,' meant to convey insomnia -- not quite spooky, not quite frantic, sometimes musing, sometimes humming to itself. III and IV are an Arabesque and Jota, with Moorish/Spanish melisma. Are those snap pizzicati in III, or is the violinist knocking on the body of her violin? Whatever the source, this addition of percussion to the mix helps to convey an exotic flavor that is hypnotic.

These are attractive, powerfully crafted works that represent a significant addition to the canon of American violin sonatas. They are not quite as evocative as those by Ives, but they can be mentioned in the same breath as those masterworks. The performances by Soroka and Greene, praised in the very helpful booklet notes by the composer, can be assumed to be authoritative.

Scott Morrison

Average customer rating:

Possibly the best available ..... but ...
Some of the best music I've ever heard
No bad apples in this bunch!
How to Listen to an American Quilt
My 2004 New Year's resolution was to review this CD...

Ives: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-4

Manufacturer: Naxos American
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00008MLVJ
Release Date: 2003-06-17

Tracks:

Andante - Allegro Vivace
Largo Cantabile
Allegro
Autumn
In The Barn
The Revival
Verse 1 (Adagio) - Verse 2 (Andante) - Verse 3 (Allegretto) - Refrain (Adagio)
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
Largo
Allegro

Customer Reviews:

Possibly the best available ..... but ..........2005-04-02

These are possibly the best available of these fantastic violin sonatas, although I haven't heard Fulkerson/Shannon. I do believe however that these performances lack the deep understanding of Druian/Simms, especially in regard to evenness of tempi and expressiveness - I get the feeling of assertiveness without conviction - e.g. in the last movement of the #3 - I realize there is a certain element of prejudice associated with judging a new performance against an accustomed one - but I sure do wish the Druian/Simms had been transferred to CD.

Some of the best music I've ever heard.......2005-01-27

Ives wrote a great deal of experimental music, exploring more compositional techniques and ideas than any other composer of the 20th century. In that sense alone he is a remarkable figure, but too much emphasis on that perspective risks diminishing the great beauty of his music. He combined innovation almost to the point of iconoclasm with the unabashed sentiment of the 19th century.

When I listen to Ives, any American music I think of, and I'm reminded of quite a bit of music when I listen to him, whether it's Coltrane, Copland or Cobain, I hear it in Ives, as if somehow all American music after him was already contained in his work, like a seed.

Although I was already very familiar with Ives' music when I got this CD, I was more impressed with these pieces than anything I've heard since I first heard Stravinskys' "Petrushka" at the age of 16.

No bad apples in this bunch!.......2004-05-25

Sometimes comparing a composer's works is like comparing apples and oranges. A big orchestral work is a very different kind of fruit than a small chamber piece. So when a composer returns several times to the same medium, it makes it easier to get an assessment of the composer's thought process and personality. In the case of Charles Ives, these four sonatas for violin and piano offer that kind of unique possibility to observe the composer's strategy at work. Ives stands unique among composers of his generation for his attempt to meld high art goals with vernacular music. Not *folk* music, mind you, but vernacular music: marching band tunes, popular ditties like "Turkey in the Straw," Stephen Foster songs, and especially the rich realm of Protestant hymnody. Ives mixes these vernacular sources together and distills a potent moonshine all his own from the mash. I've loved these four pieces for over 30 years, ever since Paul Zukovsky and Gilbert Kalish recorded them for Nonesuch around the Ives Centennial in 1974. The performances here are every bit as fine as the Zukovsky/Kalish set, and all on one disc at a bargain price! If you find the Ives orchestral works loud and messy, and can't quite warm up to the Concord Sonata (keep trying: it's worth the effort), you may find that these Violin Sonatas will help you understand what the fuss is all about: they just could be the finest works the composer wrote.

How to Listen to an American Quilt.......2004-01-25

Charles Ives - Violin Sonatas

I undertake this review with some trepidation, as all of the previous reviews are quite thorough and thoughtful, and I'm not sure how much I have to add. But two of the other reviewers want me to chime in as well...so here it goes.

Ives is without a doubt the quintessential American composer. Though the composer was highly trained, there exists an air of the autodidact about him, perhaps influenced by his famously eccentric and experimental father George. Ives received a fairly traditional education with Horatio Parker at Yale, but even there he was unable to keep his experimental tendencies in check. (When asked to write a graduation fugue, Ives wrote it in four keys!) However, as experimental as Ives gets, he is still grounded in the American musical tradition as exemplified by Parker and his kind. All one has to do is study the harmonic language of these Violin Sonatas to see this.

The Violin Sonatas span the years 1904 to 1916, but are perhaps the most consistent musical statements in his output. The language is fairly conservative for Ives, though not as conservative as the first two symphonies. You do not find the wild collages of the Fourth Symphony or the biting dissonances of the Concord Sonata in this set. Rather, these are fascinating works that are a typical Ivesian crazy quilt of hymn tunes, popular melody, almost parlor-song harmony, and impressionistic use of dissonances that is highly beguiling and in the case of some of the slow movements, deeply moving.

Each of the four sonatas has a fairly traditional three-movement structure. Sonatas 1 and 4 are fast-slow-fast sonatas while the middle two sonatas surround a fast movement with two more contemplative movements. The materials of all the sonatas are fairly tonal. The real radical nature of these works is in the structure of the movements themselves. As has been said before, Ives uses an original procedure of "cumulative form". Snippets of melody weave in and out of the texture without making a full blown thematic statement. These melodic snippets sound vaguely familiar but are manipulated enough so that they aren't totally recognizable until the end of the movement, when the source theme is stated, often very simply. The effect is climatic and deeply moving and greatly enhanced if you know the source material. For instance, the second movement of the 4th sonata (Children's Day at the Camp Meeting) weaves around a melody that has a hint of nostalgia to it. At the end it finally coalesces into the familiar children's hymn Jesus Loves Me. The effect is more moving than I ever believed that sappy hymn could be.

Shockingly, these beautiful sonatas inspired venom among those to first listen and perform them. (After a musician berated Ives over the first sonata, he uttered his famous self-question, "Are my ears on wrong?"...the inspiration, incidentally, for my own Amazon nickname...weird ears.) These sonatas are wonderfully nostalgic works. Listening to them gives you the feeling of catching a glimpse of a lost world, Victorian America with its parlor songs, camp meetings, and vigorous popular musical culture. Listening to the Ives Sonatas is like hearing that world again, but through the prism of memory and dream. The themes waft in and out, not in the organic way that a typically Germanic sonata would, but rather in a freely associative manner. So the way to appreciate these works is to follow the form in much the same way, letting your attention flow from moment to moment until Ives brings it all together in his cumulative themes. It also helps if you have some familiarity with turn of the century Protestant hymnody, as almost all these works are based on camp meeting hymns such as Watchman Tell Us of the Night, Land of Rest, and Beulah Land. Also, a bit of familiarity with fiddle tunes and 19th century popular tunes is also helpful. However, even without this knowledge these are magical and very powerful works and repay repeated listening. They are also perhaps the best place to begin for Ives novices. They have a truly Ivesian feeling without the forbidding dissonances of some of his thornier works.

Performances on this CD are really excellent. Curt Thompson is a promising young violinist with a full, pleasing tone, and a handle on the distinctively American sound these sonatas need, and he is expertly supported by Rodney Waters. Naxos is to be credited for bringing these works out as part of their Ives cycle. They were long overdue for a complete recording.

My 2004 New Year's resolution was to review this CD..........2004-01-02

...and make it my first review of the new year.

This superb Naxos CD of the four Violin Sonatas by Charles Ives might well have been reviewed months ago by me, had it not been for one small matter. Every time I'd set out to listen to the CD, I'd get as far as the Largo cantabile (2nd) movement of the 1st Violin Sonata, only to stop and play it again. And again.

Then, a few times, I actually got as far as the 3rd movement of this work, only to hear the strains of "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night," the Lowell Mason hymn, little known these days but used to such superb effect by Ives, years later, in the opening "Prelude: Maestoso" movement of his culminating masterpiece, the 4th Symphony. There I was, stuck with the same problem: Couldn't go further; simply had to listen again. And again.

Needless to say, I finally managed to solve the problem. But it took both a conscious effort to listen to the sonatas in reverse order AND a New Year's resolution as well.

There is little that I can add to the two excellent previous reviews. Scott Morrison and Robin Friedman pretty much touched all the bases: Ives's use of "cumulative form" (a developmental "working toward a summing up" of each movement, by introducing thematic fragments which, only by the end of the movement, come together to present the full theme), his inveterate borrowing of vernacular and hymnic materials, and the total parity between the two instrumentalists. (Probably never before, and never since, have such sonatas been written where the piano part is so equally matched, both thematically and technically, to the violin part. Calling these works "violin sonatas" does an injustice to the violinist's equal partner!)

Ives was not, himself, a violinist, although his father, George Edward Ives, had been a pretty good fiddler, and I'm sure that there's more than a fair bit of sentimental tribute by Charlie to George in these works. What Ives certainly did, in these sonatas, was to "introduce a distinctly American style of violin playing [...], namely paraphrases of fiddle music" and [he] "associated the violin with spiritual exaltation and with hymn singing." (These quotations are the words of Nancy Mandel, violinist and wife and co-collaborator with Alan Mandel in performing Ives's chamber works, written nearly three decades ago for an Ives centennial symposium, "On Performing the Violin Sonatas." They're certainly better than any words I could think up for this review occasion.)

Every bit of this stylistic description by Nancy Mandel comes through in these works: Scattered throughout the total of twelve movements spread over the four sonatas, one will in fact hear idiomatic fiddling - including ragtime and country and barn dances - and spiritually exalted hymnic phrasing. And, though the four works cover more than a decade of Ives's composing career, there is not an expected sense that the later works are in any way more complex than the earlier ones; almost the exact opposite occurs, in which the later two sonatas are considerably more accessible than the two earlier ones: Ives, in his "Memos," describes the later two works as "...a kind of slump backward."

While I'm not necessarily buying into Ives's self-criticism, his observation perhaps in part explains why it is that the 1st Sonata grabs me in the gut the way that it does. The work looks back to the classical tradition, with its Lisztian piano writing in the Largo cantabile movement, at the same time that it looks forward in this movement, with some eerily gorgeous violin double-stop writing that sounds to these ears as if Ives is writing in true quarter tones. This Largo cantabile movement is simply magic. And then comes the cumulative-form thematic development toward "Watchman..." in the concluding movement: spiritual exaltation indeed! Is it any wonder that I had difficulty moving past this sonata, and on to the others?

Like Scott Morrison, I remember the much earlier Rafael Druian/John Simms LPs. Unfortunately, unlike Scott, I just barely remember them. And I'm unfamiliar with the Gregory Fulkerson/Robert Shannon CDs. So, at the same time that I am rediscovering (and loving) the sonatas, I am hearing Curt Thompson and Rodney Waters for the first time.

These young instrumentalists are simply superb. Thompson gets into the dance-like episodes with true "fiddling" style, and simply soars in the hymnic passages. Waters handles the very difficult piano part with aplomb, and is every bit the equal partner to Thompson (as he needs to be, given how Ives wrote the virtuosic piano parts). I may or may not be missing anything by not having either the Druian/Simms LPs or the Fulkerson/Shannon CDs. But Naxos - once again, as it has demonstrated in the past with its Ives contributions to its "American Classics" series - need not apologize to anyone for these performances. Moreover, unlike Fulkerson/Shannon on the full-price Bridge label, where the sonatas are spread too generously over two CDs, here they fit without a problem onto a single budget CD.

I have a collection of scores in my library, admittedly small and mostly orchestral, covering those works near and dear to me. My SECOND resolution of the New Year is to track down the score for at least the 1st Violin Sonata (if only to see how Ives wrote the violin part for the Largo cantabile movement, particularly for the quarter-tone double stops), and preferably the scores for all four. This is not only "canonical Ives"; these sonatas are among the finest 20th century works in the genre.

And, looking back over all of 2003, I think that the single classical work that received the most playing time by me was this Ives 1st Violin Sonata. What a supremely sublime piece of music it is! It's strange to find myself using this as an "excuse" for such a long delay in writing this review. But there you have it.

Bob Zeidler

Average customer rating:

A great value
Rather ordinary playing mars an otherwise good collection
Leo Ornstein at the Piano
ignore the negative reviews
Great compositions, ignore negative reviews

Ornstein: Piano Sonatas

Manufacturer: Naxos American
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Taneyev: Chamber Music

ASIN: B0000690PT
Release Date: 2002-07-16

Tracks:

A Morning in The Woods
Danse Sauvage (Wild Men's Dance)
Moderato Con Moto
Semplice
Lento
Vivo
Impressions Of The Thames
Tarantelle
Molto Con Moto
Andante
Allegro
A Long Remembered Sorrow
Suicide In An Airplane

Amazon.com

Leo Ornstein, who died in 2002 at the approximate age of 110(!), was a notorious wild man in his early years. The inclusion of three of his early pieces, including such titles as Danse Sauvage and Suicide in an Airplane (both from 1913), show where he got his reputation. But there is much more to Ornstein's story than the mad dissonance of his early works. He was a highly accomplished pianist (his only recordings are acoustic 78s of Chopin) and an excellent teacher, and he wrote in a wide variety of styles, sometimes simultaneously. This disc begins with a breathtakingly lovely piece of impressionism from 1971, A Morning in the Woods, and includes two large-scale piano sonatas with many impressive aspects, one from 1924, the other from 1988. Pianist Janice Weber, who is also a successful novelist, seems to specialize in super-virtuosic music, and she is fully up to the challenges of Ornstein's most difficult writing. For its demonstration of the variety of Ornstein's work, its quality of performance, its realistic sound, and even its outstanding booklet, this disc deserves an enthusiastic recommendation. --Leslie Gerber

Customer Reviews:

A great value.......2006-07-25

This is one of the discs I listen to quite often, making it a great buy, even if Hamelin's performances of a few of the pieces have more fire. A Morning in the Woods is a lovely piece that is not dissonant and can appeal to a large crossection of listeners. Similarly, there is the Long Remembered Sorrow. People focus too much on pieces like Danse Sauvage, which are more interesting as an artistic statement than as music. The 7th sonata is, as others have said, a great piece and Ms. Weber does a fine job. I think one reviewer's comparison between the 4th sonata and Rachmaninov is inaccurate. I don't hear Rachmaninov in the work at all. If you're a buyer looking primarily for jagged/primal dissonant work, get Hamelin's disc. But, if you're interested in more impressionistic work as well as modern, this disc offers a larger perspective on Ornstein's body of work.

Rather ordinary playing mars an otherwise good collection.......2003-12-02

This is Naxos' rival to Marc-Andre Hamelin's Hyperion disc of music by the Russian-born American composer Leo Ornstein. Hamelin recorded the Eighth Piano Sonata and early Futurist pieces; in contrast, Weber records the shorter Fourth and Seventh Sonatas and a more varied selection of works.

The three works in common to both discs are Suicide in an Airplane, Danse sauvage and Impressions de la Tamise, all ferociously dissonant works from Ornstein's early Futurist phase. Suicide in an Airplane evokes the sound of an aeroplane circling overhead, then flying off into the distance, while Dans sauvage is a ferocious rhythmic toccata. Impressions is, in contrast, slow and meditative; perhaps an attempt at writing highly dissonant Debussy.

Unfortunately a comparison between Hamelin and Weber in these three works clearly illustrates the main problem with this disc: the performances are rather ordinary. While Weber certainly gets all the notes down (no mean feat in music that is often very difficult to play) Hamelin has so much more litheness, vibrancy and rhythmic articulation that there really is no contest between the two. Nonetheless, for many of the works on this disc, there is no rival, so Weber it will have to be for now.

The other short works on the disc date from the 1960s and 1970s, after Ornstein had endured a long period with little music written. The Tarantelle has something in common with his Futurist works--a vigorous rhythmic essay, if rather less abrasive than his earlier music. In contrast, A Morning in the Woods and A Long Remembered Sorrow are rhapsodic musings of a distinctly Russian temperament. They may have been written in a very old-fashioned style for their time, but that doesn't meant they aren't worth hearing.

The Fourth and Seventh Sonatas date from 64 years apart. The Fourth is from 1924 and represents a drastic retreat from the Futurism of only a few years earlier. It is a four-movement work in a basically Rachmaninovian style; though without the elder composer's genius for melody, it is still an enjoyable 20 minutes. However, the Seventh, from 1988, strikes me as the more impressive of the two. Beginning with a ferocious opening movement that recovers much of the energy of his earlier works without the crudity that sometimes mars them, it then moves through a more melodious--though still dramatic--Andante and ends with a toccata-like Allegro. This is the best of the later pieces I've heard, and if it still lives in the world of Stravinsky, Bartok and Prokofiev, who really cares?

Given the price and the lack of rival performances of the sonatas, this disc can be recommended to pianophiles and lovers of early 20th century music. I hope that the recent revival of Ornstein--even if he did not quite live to see it--will bring other pianists to his work; in particular, I would like to see a major musician tackle the Seventh Sonata.

Leo Ornstein at the Piano.......2003-06-11

The cover of this Naxos "American Classics" CD features a painting with the title of this review. The painting is by Leon Kroll (1884-1974) and is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. It dates from 1918 and features a young Leo Ornstein, his sensitive and handsome features deeply wrapped in concentration as he plays upon an open grand piano. The left hand is raised in the air with the expectation of a crashing chord to follow.

From about 1910 to the mid-1920's, Leo Ornstein (1892? - 2002) was a charismatic concert pianist. He was known as well for his dissonant, haghly avant-garde piano music. Then, in the mid-1920's, Ornstein abruptly abandoned his performing career and retired from public view. He founded a music school in Philadelphia and continued composing in a variety of styles. Orenstein died in 2002 in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the age of 109 or 110. After his initial sensational career as a pianist, documented in the cover art, Ornstein lived a quiet life.

This is a CD of Ornstein's piano music covering the span of his long life. The works are lovingly performed by Janice Weber, who also writes novels. The thouough liner notes were written by Ornstein's son, Severo Ornstein, who maintains a website devoted to his father's music.

The disc includes three short pieces from Ornstein's early avant-garde Career: Danse Sauvage (1913), Impressions of the Thames (1914), and Suicide in an Airplane (1913). These pieces are highly percussive and dissonant, with heavy chords in the bass (look again at the cover painting) alternating with lighter treble sections. These pieces remain a challenge to hear and, I am sure, to play. They appear to me in the nature of virtuosic encore pieces which the composer-pianist might have played at the conclusion of a concert devoted to recent music and perhaps to some Chopin.

The remainder of the CD is a mix of shorter pieces written later in Orenstein's life and two substantial piano sonatas. The sonatas, in particular, are intriguing, challenging music. Both the sonatas on this disc show a mixture of styles.

The fourth piano sonata dates from 1924 and is in four movements. It is largely lyrical and reflective with a final movement, marked vivo, that builds to a climax in its concluding pages. I found this music heavily influenced by French impressionism. The first movement in fact quotes Debussy's "Au Claire de Lune" several times. There is also a Russian influence derived from the mystical music of Scriabin. This is a well-integrated meditative work.

The Seventh Piano Sonata (1988) is a challenge. It continues to show the strong influence of French impressionism and has lyrical, accessible sections interspersed with complex, modernistic passages. The work is in three movements each of which is in tripartite form with a middle section contrasted to the two outer sections. This music will need repeated hearings. But I was taken with it.

There are three remaining short pieces on the CD. "A Morning in the Woods: (1971) is impressionistic and plangent with the sound of falling leaves. "A Long Remembered Sorrow" (1964) is a romantic work tinged with melancholy which again reaches its climax in the concluding moments. The "Tarantelle" (1960) is a running, shimmering quick piece with a quiet middle section. In this Tarantelle, I thought again of encore music.

Some listeners will find this CD forbidding. But one of the joys of music lies in the delight in finding little-known composers who speak to one. I found Ornstein such a composer. His long life showed composition and creativity in both modernistic and traditional forms. It was a life devoted to the art of music.

ignore the negative reviews.......2003-04-03

this is an excellent cd. very interesting and unique. some tracks are very "atonal" sounding while many others are strangely beautiful. highly recommended.

Great compositions, ignore negative reviews.......2003-03-25

This is unrivaled virtuosity, dissonant and strange. Highly recommended

Charles Ives / Aaron Copland: Piano Works

Average customer rating:

William Gregory: "On The Turntable"
American Record Guide
¡Wow!
Buy it, you'll love it...
excellent performance and superb sound!

Charles Ives / Aaron Copland: Piano Works
Ives , Copland , and Nalley
Manufacturer: Eroica Classical
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00006L4Z6
Release Date: 2002-09-07

Tracks:

I. Adagio con moto
IIa. First Verse: Allegro moderato
IIb. Second Verse: 'In the Inn' Allegro
III. Largo-allegro-largo
IV. Allegro-presto
V. Andante maestoso
I. Molto moderato
II. Vivace
III. Andante sostenuto

Album Description

Charles Ives, Sonata No. 1 Aaron Copland, Sonata JDT 3097

Charles Ives Sonata No. 1 (1902-1910) I. Adagio con moto IIa. First Verse: Allegro moderato IIb. Second Verse: 'In the Inn' Allegro III. Largo-allegro-largo IV. Allegro-presto V. Andante maestoso

Aaron Copland Sonata (1939-1941) I. Molto moderato II. Vivace III. Andante sostenuto

James Nalley Piano

Customer Reviews:

William Gregory: "On The Turntable".......2003-02-22

Ives: Sonata no 1/ Copland: Sonata
James Nally-Piano (Eroica)

James Nally has conceived this great Modern American Sonata album, and it resounds with aplomb, idyllic youth and passion. The Copland and Ives Sonatas compliment one another like bookends, laying out a sonic wilderness that serves to remind us of our rich contribution to the cannon of contemporary music. The diversity found in the collage-like composition of Ive's Sonata is fragmented and trance inducing. Due in large part to Lou Harrison's considerable editing, Ives found his voice; a voice that pre-dated today's ideas of sampling. Ives extrapolated folk music, classical forms and gospel music to create a distinct voice that crossed boundaries. In this piano Sonata in particular we find Ives, borrowing from ragtime, hymns such as "What a friend we have in Jesus" and "Bringing in the Sheaves" and Liszt. While Copland's Sonata seems to be in juxtaposition to the Ives piece, it's simple to find the shared vision of the folk idiom and tribute to Americana. Mr. Nalley intelligently and vividly portrays these masterful pieces by setting the tone for each movement with precision and rapture. His playing is a concise explosion of mind, body and sound that is at times reminiscent of Pierre Laurent Aimard. This is a truly magnificent set of performances. William Gregory: "On the Turntable."

American Record Guide.......2003-01-08

Copland: Piano Sonata
Ives: Piano Sonata I
James Nalley-Eroica 3097-65 minutes

The first impression of this release is the strong lyrical sense pianist Nalley brings to these thorny American works: the first sonata of Charles Ives with its atypical format of seven movements (two of which are grouped together), and Aaron Copland's only piano sonata with its three movements.
Ives worked on this sonata on and off from about 1902 to 1929. Because of Nalley's sympathetic ear for Ives the experimenter, his sound is full of beauty, even in what may first strike the ear as startling dissonances. His lyrical and harmonic senses guide the ear through a thicket of otherwise confusing harmonies and textures. And the result is a revelation.
While there are many passages full of clusters and unpredictable and irregular rhythms, expression and sound are enough to know what is going on, whether expansive and rhapsodic or foot-stomping dances. There are pockets of tonality, phrasing, and rhythmic gestures that keep the listener oriented. So for listeners who had just a few experiences with the more disorienting modern music of the last 50 years, or for those who skipped it but still went to movies in the meantime, this music will not seem so unmoored and forbidding as it was when first composed.
Ives makes considerable musical and technical demands on the pianist. One can tell he had a good sense of the piano and what tends to work on the instrument, what is idiomatic and natural to the hands in this setting. Like Brahms, Ives was probably a big man whose physique seemed to influence the technical demands he made to convey his musical ideas.
At first, there is a listener's satisfaction in recognizing and being able to name familiar melodies. But Ives's intention was to use familiar quotations, (such as 'Bringing in the Sheaves') that resonate with the American experience. Often this took the form of hymns from the Protestant tradition. The closer the listener's experience with this tradition, the deeper the resonance of the musical quotation.
Copland's voice is unmistakable. Dating from 1939, his Piano Sonata, where I is so reminiscent of his Variations of 1930, is impressive with its many clangorous and granitic sounds--so many gestures made up of wide intervals and leaps. The playful and charming II resembles the helter-skelter scherzo of Samuel Barber's sonata. It uses the interval of a major 6th both melodically and harmonically as the main building block. III's tone is majestic and reverential. Nalley tunes in to the introverted expression, creating a timeless, other-worldly quality. The clangorous clusters resemble pealing bells, with their loud overtones. And as the movement fades out, the "bells" resonate as if at a distance. Remarkably played. This recording is a real treasure! BARELA

¡Wow!.......2002-11-02

¡Buy it! Buy two, buy three, buy a bunch and hand them out for Christmas.

Buy it, you'll love it..........2002-10-10

Hard to believe I've never heard of this guy. He's one of the best pianists I've ever come across. If you like American classical music, you won't be let down by this amazing performance.

excellent performance and superb sound!.......2002-09-19

This is an excellent performance and the sound was superb!

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Masters of the Bow: Cello

Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

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Masters of the Bow
Masters of the Keyboard
Masters of the Guitar
Masters of the Voice: Tenor
Masters of the Trumpet

ASIN: B000095J86
Release Date: 2003-05-13

Tracks:

The Swan - Maurice Gendron
Sarabande - Janos Starker
Pezzo - Maurice Gendron
Vocalise - Nina Kotova
Gigue - Pierre Fournier
Allegro Con Brio - Pablo Casals
III. Rondo (Allegro) - Christine Walevska
III. Largo - Ton Koopman
Intermezzo - Bruno Canino
Silent Woods - Mischa Maisky
Introduction & Polonaise Brillante For Cello And Piano In C Major, Op. 3 - Maurice Gendron
The Flight Of Bumble Bee - Julian Lloyd Webber
II. Andante - Scherzo - Lynn Harrell

Tracks:

Ave Maria - Mischa Maisky
Langsam, Mit Innigem Ausdruck - Gerhard Oppitz
Rasch Und Feurig - Heinrich Schiff
Nocturne - Julian Lloyd Webber
Allegretto - Mstislav Rostropovich
Kol Nidrei - Lynn Harrell
Scherzo Tarantelle - Heinrich Schiff
Abendlied - Tibor De Machula
Guitarre - Maurice Gendron
Elegie - Lynn Harrell
Irish Tune - Julian Lloyd Webber
Ritual Fire Dance - Nina Kotova
Elite Syncopations - Heinrich Schiff
Apres Un Reve No. 1 Op. 7 - Lynn Harrell
Eulogy To The Eternity Of Jesus - Maurice Gendron

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Four American Piano Sonatas

Manufacturer: Equilibrium Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

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Griffes: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1

ASIN: B000031VSF
Release Date: 1999-11-23

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Gay pride taken to absurdity

Gay American Composers-Volume 2

Manufacturer: Composers Recordings
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Dances | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

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Gay American Composers

ASIN: B000005TYR
Release Date: 1997-05-20

Tracks:

Aeolian Harp
The Banshee
The Lilt Of The Reel
Ulysses At The Edge Of The World
Excursions For Piano: Un Poco Allegro
Excursions For Piano: In Slow Blues Tempo
Excursions For Piano: Allegretto
Excursions For Piano: Allegro Molto
Concerto For Piano & Orchestra: Moderato Molto
Sonata For Violin & Piano: Moderate Tempo
Symphony No. 3: Allegro Moderato
Symphony No. 3: Tempo Di Valzer
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35 (1951)
Ryoanji
Electronic Dance Music: Frail Demons: Dance 1
Electronic Dance Music: Tribe: Dance 2
Sonatas & Interludes For Prepared Piano: Sonata XIII

Customer Reviews:

Gay pride taken to absurdity.......2001-09-26

A compilation with no purpose, pasted together (tastefully) from slices of other great CRI releases. Is this supposed to have educational value? Shock value? Wouldn't you rather hear Cowell paired with, say, an openly hetero Charles Ives? Or a complete epic Partch work? Or an entire CD of Cage's Sonatas & Interludes? None of these composers made being gay central to their musical identities. I doubt if they would have done so even in the present era. What next? The Greatest Throbbing Hits of Tchaikovsky? The secret gay composer, artist or poet was no secret to his patrons, friends & most dedicated fans. He even enjoyed certain advantages,

Tracks:

Six Son: Moderato - Nancy Armstrong
Six Son: Allegro - Nancy Armstrong
Six Son: Moderato - Nancy Armstrong
Six Son: Allegro - Nancy Armstrong
Six Son: Moderato - Nancy Armstrong
Six Son: Allegro - Nancy Armstrong
Fant - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll
Fant-Toccata - Mark Kroll
Son: Allegro Leggiero - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll
Son: Adagio Espressivo - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll
Son: Allegro Vivo - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll
Yizkor And Anima Aeterna: Not Too Slow - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll/Alan Weiss
Yizkor And Anima Aeterna: Lively - Nancy Armstrong/Mark Kroll/Alan Weiss
Four Fragments From The Canterbury Tales: Prologue - Nancy Armstrong/Bruce Creditor/Alan Weiss/Mark Knoll
Four Fragments From The Canterbury Tales: A Knyght - Nancy Armstrong/Bruce Creditor/Alan Weiss/Mark Knoll
Four Fragments From The Canterbury Tales: A Young Squier - Nancy Armstrong/Bruce Creditor/Alan Weiss/Mark Knoll
Four Fragments From The Canterbury Tales: The Wyf Of Biside Bathe - Nancy Armstrong/Bruce Creditor/Alan Weiss/Mark Knoll

Customer Reviews:

"Canterbury Tales" is a triumph!.......2002-12-30

Mark Kroll's contemporary harpsichord album is great, but I am particularly impressed by soprano Nancy Armstrong's exuberant performance of "Four Fragments from the Canterbury Tales". Nancy Armstrong deserves to be far better known than she is. Years ago, she was described as "the Purcell Prima Donna of our day" by The New Yorker. Check out her new solo CD "What Magic Has Victorious Love" with works of Purcell and Handel, published by VAI.

Incredible Recording!!!.......2002-03-17

If you thought harpsichord was only for Baroque continuo parts, you will be plesantly surprised. This is first-rate from top to bottom. I was particularly impressed with the flute playing of Alan Weiss. He's the best flutist I've heard since Rampal and Baker. Carol Liebermann is a superb artist as are the other collaborators.

Average customer rating:

AMERICAN MASTERS FOR THE 21ST

Manufacturer: INNOVA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Sextets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0006UYOWY
Release Date: 2005-01-11

The Promise of Ages : A Christmas Collection

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Superb Choral Christmas Music
Unique and special
Beautiful Harmonies and Vocalizations
A "top ten" Christmas album
A "top ten" Christmas album

The Promise of Ages : A Christmas Collection

Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Sacred & Religious | Classical | Styles | Music

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The Naxos Book of Carols
Carol Album: Seven Centuries of Christmas
Christus Natus Est: Early English Christmas
Mass for Christmas Morning
Noel: Christmas at Kings

ASIN: B00000DFNP
Release Date: 1998-10-20

Tracks:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Nos Galan (Deck the Halls)
Lullay, Thou Tiny Little Child
Ther Is No Rose of Swych Vertu
I Sing of a Maiden
There Is No Rose from "A Ceremony of Carols"
O Magnum Mysterium (Responsory at Matins for Christmas Day)
Song of the Nuns of Chester, Verses 1-3: "Qui Creavit Celum"
Fader of Heven (Ca. 1450 Mystery Play)
Song of the Nuns of Chester, Verses 4-6: Lactat Mater Domini
O Magnum Mysterium (Responsory at Matins for Christmas Day)
Lullay, Lullow: I Saw a Swete Semly Syght
I Wonder as I Wander
Staines Morris (Blessed Be That Maid Marie)
Hayl, Mary, Ful of Grace
Seven Joys of Mary
Illuminare, Jerusalem
Good People All
Sing We the Virgin Mary
In Bethlehem City
Christmas Eve
Hodie Christus Natus Est (Antiphon from Chester Processional)
Jesu, Thou the Virgin-Born
As Dew in Aprille from " a Ceremony of Carols"
Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending

Amazon.com

No one has recorded more innovative Christmas anthologies than Andrew Parrott--and this disc is no exception. The Promise of Ages presents a collection of wonderful seasonal music arranged for women's voices (all arrangements were either made or sanctioned by the composers). The selection includes 15th-century English works such as "There is no rose of swych vertu"; traditional tunes both genuine ("Deck the Halls" in an 18th-century Welsh arrangement for harp) and fake (J. J. Niles's "I Wonder as I Wander" and "Lullay, thou little tiny child"); rollicking Irish dance tunes; and 20th-century works by such composers as Britten, Holst, and Judith Weir on traditional Christmas texts. One ingenious and effective suite combines Peter Maxwell Davies's "O magnum mysterium" and "The Fader of Heven" with the 14th-century "Song of the Nuns of Chester." All of the performances are exemplary, but Emily van Evera deserves special praise for her beautifully simple rendition of the Niles tunes. This collection can stand alongside Parrott's The Carol Album as the thinking person's Christmas albums. --Matthew Westphal

Customer Reviews:

Superb Choral Christmas Music.......2007-01-20

Andrew Parrott, and the Taverner Concert and Choir have done it again !

This is a superb collection of traditional music from the past, some of it familiar, some not so well known, all performed so very well.

Unique and special.......2007-01-09

Loved this album the entire thing. An English flavour.
Especially loved the Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending..
heart stirring. A great way to get into the Christmas
spirit and lift your heart.

Beautiful Harmonies and Vocalizations.......2000-12-13

Like another reviewer, I am thrilled at Lo! He Comes, as well as with the unfamiliar setting for Hark the Herald Angels Sing and the beautiful Sing We the Virgin Mary.

If you love beautiful vocalizations, especially rare soprano-alto harmonizations, this is the album for you.

A "top ten" Christmas album.......2000-11-13

If this album contained nothing but it's splendid rendition of Madan's Lo! He Comes, with Clouds Descending, the album would be worth owning. Fortunately, the entire album is a brillant mix of voices, instrumentals and performance styles; the resulting album can be played several times in successiion without becoming repetative - no small feat for a Christmas album.

The album ranges from the 13th century Nuns of Chester to contemporary composers - Judith Weir - or nearly comtemporary - Britten, Holst ... with excellent sequencing so that no piece seems out of place.

The instrumentation varies from the traditional organ with SATB choir to fiddle, flute, concertina and cello. This provides the variety that makes the album so listenable.

For traditional Christmas music this album is a must.

A "top ten" Christmas album.......2000-11-13

The instrumentation varies from the traditional organ with SATB choir to fiddle, flute, concertina and cello. This provides the variety that makes the album so listenable.

For traditional Christmas music this album is a must.

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