twentieth variations mendelssohn gubaydulina

classical music:

23 reviews
Robert Black, Gregory Hesselink, ...

Philips, 1998

Eno gone wild
Bang On A Can's version of "Music for Airports" adds a jangly depth to Eno's more compressed version. They've managed to use the studio to create space in an already swiss cheese like piece. But the key difference here is the space is much more stark than Eno, thanks to the startling presence of their instruments, which rattle and drone and twitter expressively. The quiet becomes the space for ...

For the Fallen
Maya Beiser, Samuel Barber, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 2002

World To Come

3 reviews
Maya Beiser, Osvaldo Golijov, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 2003

Pärt fans take note
Beyond the musical composition there is an intangible, almost mystical quality to many of Pärt's albums, especially my personal favorite - Tabula Rasa. Maya's version of Fratres is what initially attracted me to this album. However, this cut is actually now one of my least favorites. Track #1 alone would make this album worth the price. Maya's playing captures something that is beyond words and ...

Bang on a Can - Cheating, Lying, Stealing

3 reviews
Maya Beiser, Evan Ziporyn, ...

Sony, 1996

Strong!
Seems a lot of folks find Golijov shallow and it's easy to qualify. One example: he goes to that ululated falling second degree business so often when he wants pathos that it becomes a cliche. That's calculation. On the other hand, accusations of phoniness and pretension can hardly be qualified. It's just name-calling, like right-wing talk radio.

Women of Note ~ Beach, Boulanger, Clarke, Gubaidulina, Larsen, Mendelssohn, Monk, Musgrave, Ran, Zwilich

2 reviews
Libby Larsen, Sofia Gubaidulina, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 1997

It's about Time!
A top-notch sampling of mainly 20th-century music by women composers, including Lili Boulanger and Pulitzer Prize-winners Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Shulamit Ran, this cd proves that the music has been excellent all along. What we have needed are good recordings of superior performances. The samples often are brief--e.g., a single movement from Clarke's cello sonata--yet do provide jumping off ...

Water Passion After St Matthew

3 reviews
Tan Dun, O'Connor, ...

Sony, 2002

St. Matthew Passion as World Ritual
The concept for this contribution to the Passion 2000 project smacked so much of "political correctness" and world music crossover gimmickry that I almost passed it by. Tan Dun is a composer that intrigues me, but the idea of a Buddhist making understandable this most Christian of stories seemed quite a stretch to me. I shouldn't have worried at all. I have heard three of the four works from the ...

Kinship

3 reviews
Maya Beiser, Anonymous, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 2000

Forget what you think you know about the cello
This album is extraordinary. Listening is its own reward, but if you ever get a chance to see this performer, RUSH! She's unbelievable in live performance. This is what happens when a brilliantly talented virtuoso with the requisite classical training expresses her interest in the wide world and shrugs off the constraints of the classical canon. This is MUSIC. Why you have to search ...

Osvaldo Golijov: Oceana

14 reviews
Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Spano, ...

Deutsche Grammophon, 2007

Anyone notice the cover image?
If you're curious, the cover image for this DG release is recycled from Bill Evans and Jim Hall's 1962 'Undercurrent' album.

Steve Reich: You Are (Variations)

15 reviews
Maya Beiser, Steve Reich, ...

Nonesuch, 2005

A Joyful Noise!
Many years ago I saw a performance of Steve Reich's "Drumming". I remember it exciting me. But it's not the kind of music you walk out humming, certainly not if you're a near layperson like I. So I didn't think much more about Steve Reich until hearing a report on NPR about the Steve Reich Festival in New York celebrating his 75th birthday. I got motivated and ordered this CD. And what a ...

Steve Reich: Phases

3 reviews
Donald Palma, Maya Beiser, ...

Nonesuch, 2006

A Steve Reich 70th Birthday Present from Nonesuch
If you are a big Steve Reich fan, you probably already have most or all of these recordings. These are not rarities, PHASES is not for collectors -- this 5-disc box is aimed at those of us who have been curious, but not convinced enough to buy multiple Reich recordings. I, for instance, consider MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS to be a masterpiece of late 20th century music (the original ECM recording), ...

Spectrum: New Chamber Music

1 review
Maya Beiser, David Del Tredici, ...

Composers Recordings, 1994

Some Magical Music of Robert Helps
Like many new music albums this was put together from several sources. Spectrum Concerts Berlin provided about half, but is mis-identified here as Spectrum Ensemble Berlin. Anyway, while the other pieces take some work warming up to -- for me, at least, who am a dogged but slow listener -- the Helps pieces are an immediate marvel. As teacher-conductor Maurice Peress observed about connections ...

Gubaydulina: Preludes; In Croce

1 review
Maya Beiser, Sofia Gubaidulina, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 1995

interesting stuff
This is a fantastic recording of two of the 21st century's neglected geniuses. Maya Beiser is a stunning cellist as well, not to mention, quite the babe. Highly recommended.

Oblivion

1 review
Piazzolla, Nin, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 1999

powerful piazzolla
A couple of months ago I purchased a recording of contemporary piano pieces by Rzewski with Anthony de Mare playing and was so blown away by his performance that I picked up this one. A semi-devoted fan of Piazzolla, I picked up this recording with certain expectations. I would say that this one did not disappoint in the least and is one of the most gorgeous performance and interpretations ...

Julius Burger: Stille der Nacht; Legende; Cello Concerto; Scherzo for Strings; etc.
Michael Kraus, Maya Beiser, ...

Toccata, 2006

Julius Burger had to wait till his mid-nineties to receive even a portion of the recognition he deserved as a composer. That was when, in 1991, several of his compositions were given for the first time at Alice Tully Hall in New York. An assistant conductor of the Berlin Opera in his youth, Burger had joined the Met in New York in the 1920s, then returned to Europe to work with Otto Klemperer at the Berlin Staatsoper and arrange music for ...

Almost Human

2 reviews
Eve Beglarian, Joby Talbot, ...

Koch Int'l Classics, 2007

A stunning amalgam
I had already considered that Maya Beiser used her instrument in the same fascinating way that Laurie Anderson uses her voice when I came upon this album and realized that the the analogy in my mind had become a reality. "I am writing to you from the end of the world." The combination of words, sung sounds, and melody creates an otherworldly state that is incomparable. This album is another ...

My Twentieth Century
Maya Beiser, Martin Bresnick, ...

New World Records, 2005

Martin Bresnick (b. 1946) has long been an influential teacher of music composition at Yale but over the past few years he has begun to receive recognition as an important composer in his own right. On the occasion of Bresnick?s receiving the first Ives Living Award, John Harbison averred, ?His music is formally clear, and it has a combination of a direct expressivity and a rigorous method, as well as a real sense of sonic immediacy.? His ...

Gubaydulina: Preludes; In Croce

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