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Frank Denyer: Screens
by John Eyles
Composer Frank Denyer was born in London, in April 1943. Screens, recorded at the Menuhin School in Surrey, England, in September 2022, serves to mark the milestone of Denyer's eightieth birthday. It is his sixth album on Another Timbre, his first having been the label's third release, Music for Shakuhachi (2007); that featured four Denyer compositions for solo shakuhachi or shakuhachi plus percussion, performed by shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto at a time when the newly-formed label seemed more interested in ...
read moreMarco Baldini: Maniera
by Marat Ingeldeev
It was February 2023 when the world got to know the Florence-based composer Marco Baldini a little better, thanks to Another Timbre and their first feature of Baldini's music, an inaugural album, Vesperi. His second offering, Maniera, captivatingly performed by Apartment House, comprises a collection of seven pieces for various combinations of string instruments. Interestingly, the name alludes to both Italian Mannerism of the 16th century--one of Baldini's favourite styles in fine arts, critiqued for its perceived lack of originality--and ...
read moreMartin Arnold: Flax
by John Eyles
In 2020, near the dawn of the COVID-19 lockdown, in a benevolent act, the Another Timbre label commissioned a number of selected composers to write pieces that would be recorded for the label. One such commission was for one of the label's esteemed Canadian composers, Martin Arnold, to write a CD-length piece for renowned pianist Philip Thomas who had recently recorded the much acclaimed five-CD box set of Morton Feldman compositions. Remembering discussions he had had with Thomas and having ...
read moreJürg Frey: String Trio
by John Eyles
2023 was always going to be a landmark year for the esteemed Swiss clarinetist and composer Jürg Frey. His 70th birthday was in May and, to celebrate it, the renowned Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival allocated three slots to Frey's music on the festival's second Saturday. In addition, String Trio became the third Frei album released in 2023, following in the footsteps of Continuité, fragilité, resonance (Elsewhere), recorded in August 2022 by a string quartet plus four saxophones, and Circular Music ...
read moreSeamus Cater: A History of Musical Pitch
by John Eyles
Seamus Cater is a British-born musician whose parents were active folk revivalists in London in the '60s, meaning that folk and singing permeated his early music experiences. He learned to play harmonica when he was 19. It was only when he was 23 that he attended an Access course for mature students, playing improvised music and jazz. After a jazz degree at Salford University, he moved to Holland where he has lived ever since. After the Millenium he moved towards ...
read moreMorton Feldman: Violin and String Quartet
by John Eyles
With a running time of just over two hours, Morton Feldman's 1985 composition “Violin and String Quartet" is one of his longer ones, even though it falls far short of such pieces as 1984's “For Philip Guston" at four hours or 1983's “String Quartet (II)" at over six hours without a break. Their durations have made it difficult to neatly fit such compositions onto CDs; the Ives Ensemble's 4-CD recording of String Quartet (II) (hat[now] ART, 2003) bore the message, ...
read moreApartment House: Morton Feldman Violin and String Quartet
by Marat Ingeldeev
In the late 1970s, American composer Morton Feldman began writing exceptionally lengthy compositions. Not only did these works push the boundaries of traditional concert duration, but more importantly, they explored how the composer could tackle the subject of sheer scale itself. Speaking about this challenge, Feldman said: “Up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half it's scale. Form is easy: just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter." At ...
read moreLaurence Crane: Natural World
by John Eyles
Compared to the number of albums which many jazz or improvising musicians release, it can often be an eye-opener to glance at the discography of musicians from other genres. For example, although composer Laurence Crane was born in Oxford in 1961, is Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and his music is frequently performed, recorded and broadcast in the UK and elsewhere, Natural World is only the seventh album to feature his music since his ...
read moreAdrián Demoč: Neha
by John Eyles
The last Adrián Demoč album release was Hlaholika (Another Timbre, 2021), featuring the title composition, which was one of Another Timbre's four “quarantine commissions" from different composers, commissioned at the beginning of the Covid 19 lockdown. Recorded in August 2020, that piece was played by five members of Apartment House, presumably because larger ensembles were not allowed due to the virus. In fact, that album's only track featuring six players, “Lešenie k zahĺbeniu" had been recorded in May 2005. Fast ...
read moreMagnus Granberg: Evening Star, Vesper Bell
by John Eyles
This album is the tenth on Another Timbre (AT) featuring Magnus Granberg's music, making him the composer who has appeared most often on the label, his first release having been Ist gefallen in den Schnee in 2012. Ironically, Evening Star, Vesper Bell also marks the first time Granberg has recorded with Apartment House, who have practically become the AT house band, this being their twenty-eighth appearance on the label. Granberg has also released albums on other labels, most notably three ...
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