On this CD:
1. Symphony No. 2 ("Illuminato in Tenebris", "Music in Abstract Lines")
Composed by Gloria Coates
Performed by Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Wolf-Dieter Hauschild
2. Symphony No. 9 ("The Quinces Quandry","Homage to Van Gogh") (2 versions)
Composed by Gloria Coates
3. Fragment from Leonardo's Notebooks "Anima della Terra" for 4 soloists & orchestra
Composed by Gloria Coates
Performed by Miroslav Kopp, Jirina Markova, Piotr Nowacki
Conducted by Matthias Kuntzsch
4. Time Frozen, for chamber orchestra
Composed by Gloria Coates
Performed by Das Neue Werk Ensemble Hamburg
Conducted by Dieter Cichewiecz
Coates: Symphony No. 2, Homage to Van Gogh, etc., Music, Gloria Coates, Gloria Coates, Dieter Cichewiecz, Matthias Kuntzsch, Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Ensemble "Das Neue Werk" Hamburg, Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, Jirina Markova, Miroslav Kopp, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Music for Chamber Orchestra, Orchestral, Orchestral & Symphonic, Symphonic, Symphony, Vocal, Vocal Music
Average customer rating: 
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Coates: Symphony No. 2, Homage to Van Gogh, etc.
Manufacturer: Cpo Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD  Coates, Gloria
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ASIN: B00000FYA7 Release Date: 1998-12-01 |
Tracks:
Customer Reviews:
An unusual, distinctive voice in new music.......2004-01-16
The Second Symphony of 1988 (in fact a version for large orchestra of her 1974 chamber orchestra piece Planets) is a case in point. It is written in three movements (Northern Lights, Southern Lights and Dawn), each lasting about five minutes, and the first movement mixes (often quite banal and repetitive) tonal melodies and chorales against slow, gliding microtonal canons for the strings. The string glissandi recede in importance in the first half of the finale--based on repetition of brief melodic fragments--but return in the hectic build-up to the climax.
The Quinces' Quandary: Homage to Van Gogh was written simultaneously with the Ninth Symphony and is in fact a version of it for chamber orchestra (the present recording is in fact of its world premiere in Dresden in 1995). A single movement, lasting just under 25 minutes, it progresses slowly and austerely through a sequence of microtonal glissandi, open fifths on the strings, rumblings from the percussion and--in the later stages--chorale melodies. Though the work is very striking in sonic terms, it strikes me as about twice the length the material merits, and I find myself losing interest before the end.
Fragment from Leonardo's Notebooks, "Anima della Terra", written in 1972, is the only vocal work on this disc. This ten-minute setting, part of a still-incomplete oratorio project, is scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass as well as a large orchestra. This work is far more conventionally written than the other pieces on this disc, and features slow-moving dissonant tonal music in the orchestra that gradually builds to a climax: over this rather bleak landscape intermittent eruptions occasionally burst the vocalists.
Time Frozen, a twenty-minute chamber-orchestra work analogous to the Sixth Symphony in the way that Homage to Van Gogh relates to the Ninth Symphony, was first performed in 1995, and that performance is featured here. This work is one of the most extreme examples of Coates' obsessively canonic writing, as all three movements are in canon form. The first movement is a slow canon in clashing tunings over distantly rumbling drums; the shorter second movement applies canonic procedures to slow glissandi; the finale switches to glissandi that slide up and down like wailing sirens while the rumble of drums returns.
Coates' voice is a very distinctive one, and her music is certainly intriguing, though I tend to find that one or two pieces at a time is enough for me. Her work has something of the single-minded obsessiveness of lone figures such as Ustvolskaya and Scelsi, though I think she is somewhat less of a composer than those two. Nonetheless, this disc should appeal to a small but enthusiastic subset of experimental and contemporary music enthusiasts.
dark dark dark.......2003-06-07
Music Review:
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