May 1st, 2008
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3:29 pm est
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Blair Sanderson
Perhaps no 20th century composer for the piano was as technically demanding or as prolific as Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988), who became internationally famous for his extremely dense and fiendishly difficult keyboard works. Yet despite his global fame, due largely to the strenuous promotional efforts of such energetic pianists as Marc-André Hamelin, John Ogdon, and Jonathan Powell, his vast oeuvre is still largely unknown, because of the difficulty and expense of publishing his intricate and immense manuscripts. Furthermore, this music is so virtuosic, only the most skilled, muscular, and artistically committed musicians can approach such monuments of complexity as Le jardin parfumé, the Concerto per suonare da me solo, and perhaps the most mind-boggling of all Sorabji’s works, the four-hour long Opus Clavicembalisticum.
On the surface, Sorabji’s fantastically dense music resembles the apocalyptic works of Alexander Scriabin, though it is important to point out that Sorabji’s harmonies and textures are far more daunting to performers and listeners alike. Yet this challenging music is intensely rewarding, as these electrifying samples may convey.
Fantaisie Espagnole 
Un nido de scatole
Djâmî
St. Bertrand de Comminges
Rosario d’arabeschi
Gulistan
Piano Sonata No. 4
Le jardin parfumé
Concerto per suonare da me solo e senza orchestra, per divertisi
Opus Clavicembalisticum
April 11th, 2008
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8:18 am est
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Uncle Dave Lewis
Setting: The music library of San Jose State University, 1979. A student happens to run into his teacher, perpetually jolly and genial composer Lou Harrison, outside one of the tiny, closet-like listening booths with their already antiquated turntables. The student plays in the gamelan ensemble on campus that Harrison leads, and somehow the subject comes up of Indonesian gamelan in its relation to Western music. The student confides that he is familiar with the work of Colin McPhee and his Balinese transcriptions of the 1930s; he believes these to be the earliest examples of a Western musician dealing with the potent influence of the gamelan.
Harrison counters, “Oh, no! There are certainly gamelan inspired works that are earlier than that – don’t forget about Debussy and Pagodes. Here, let me show you something.…” Strolling leisurely down a narrow aisle of densely shelved music scores, Harrison stops at one spot and thinks out loud to himself, “Where is it? I should be able to find this, as it used to belong to me. Oh –- here it is,” and pulls down a red-backed quarto of fairly thick size. “This is Leopold Godowsky’s Java Suite which was published in the 1920s.”
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March 28th, 2008
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7:11 am est
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AMG Staff
How well can you judge a CD by its cover? We put that question to the test by having each classical editor choose an album based solely on its cover, record his/her initial impressions and expectations, and then review the recording. Each editor’s “before” expectations are listed below; follow the links under the entries to see the “after” reviews. And now, on with the judgment!
Anthony Coleman: Lapidation
Blair Sanderson
At first blush, this CD appears to feature some kind of sparse avant-garde or ambient music, judged solely by the simple abstract art on the cover. There’s a subdued, minimalist feeling to the washed-out colors and roughly repetitive shapes, and the spiral — do you go clockwise or widdershins? — connotes an introspective approach in the music, perhaps of a meditative bent. Does a Japanese rock garden spring to mind? A Zen koan, anyone? Without knowing the work of this composer or how lapidation (i.e., the stoning of a person to death) figures into the musical style, method, or structure, one might guess that the music has some connection to pitched percussion or tuned stoneware, and hopefully not smashed crockery.
Read the review here
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March 25th, 2008
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1:09 pm est
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Stephen Eddins
The Metropolitan Opera continued its series of HD simulcasts to movie theaters with a performance of Tristan und Isolde on Saturday. This year’s run of the opera is likely to end up in the annals of performances that are, in the diplomatic words of Met General Manager Peter Gelb, “somewhat star-crossed.” This was to have been (and may yet be) an epoch-making Tristan, starring two of the greatest Wagnerian singers of our time, Deborah Voight and Ben Heppner, conducted by one of the greatest of the composer’s contemporary interpreters, James Levine, in a starkly but beautifully simple production by director Dieter Dorn and designer Jürgen Rose. But it was not to be.
Ben Heppner took ill with a viral infection and had to cancel his appearances, although he may have recovered enough to sing the last two performances later this week. His initial replacement was deemed inadequate and removed after a single performance, and was replaced by Gary Lehman. Then, at the second performance, Deborah Voight became ill in the middle of the second act and had to leave the stage to be replaced by her understudy. In the third performance, because of a malfunction in the stage machinery, Mr. Lehman was thrown into the prompter’s box (!), but fortunately didn’t sustain any serious injuries, and the performance was resumed. (Amazingly, these circumstances pale in comparison with those of the opera’s 1865 premiere: the Tristan, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, died of a heart attack soon after the premiere, although he was only 29, and Wagner blamed himself for writing a role so physically and psychologically grueling that it precipitated the singer’s death.)
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March 18th, 2008
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12:36 pm est
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Patsy Morita
Last November, Austrian pianist 