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Pieces of Africa
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Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass
from: Nonesuch
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Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet / Aki Takahashi, Kronos Quartet
from: Nonesuch
: essential recording:Written two years before his death in 1987, Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet is a shimmering, pristine musical event. Contrasting Aki Takahashi's widely-spaced piano arpeggios with Kronos Quartet's extended chords, Feldman allows lingering sounds from either the piano or the strings to haze over many of the piece's near-silences. Kronos plays their parts with tremulous fragility, often making pointedly clear the viola's musical valley between the leading violins and the trailing cello. By the time Feldman composed this piece, he was deeply committed to extended works--chamber pieces that ...
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The John Adams Earbox: A 10-CD Retrospective
from: Nonesuch
: :Having earned his composing stripes after the 1960s, John Adams had the pioneering work of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley close at hand as he ventured into his trade. And, while minimalism's historical continuum helps place Adams, he used Reich, Glass, and Riley (among others) only as a starting point. And here's proof: a 10-CD retrospective of nearly all Adams's recorded compositions on Nonesuch Records, the label that also issued Steve Reich 1965-1995 and Kronos Quartet: 25 Years. Adams's Harmonium, a choral work of startling energy and effervescence, appears ...
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Piazzolla: Five Tango Sensations
from: Nonesuch
: essential recording:This 'EP' (about 27:00) contains just one work and sells for a reduced price. Astor Piazzolla wrote this music for himself to play with the Kronos Quartet. People who don't know Piazzolla's music might think this is just a collection of dances. But Piazzolla did for the tango what Chopin did for the polonaise, writing music of substance and passion that rewards repeated listening. I wish Nonesuch would reissue this disc combined with the its CD of Piazzolla orchestral works (now out of print, regrettably). But for the cautious, ...
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The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind
: essential recording:This 'EP' (about 27:00) contains just one work and sells for a reduced price. Astor Piazzolla wrote this music for himself to play with the Kronos Quartet. People who don't know Piazzolla's music might think this is just a collection of dances. But Piazzolla did for the tango what Chopin did for the polonaise, writing music of substance and passion that rewards repeated listening. I wish Nonesuch would reissue this disc combined with the its CD of Piazzolla orchestral works (now out of print, regrettably). But for the cautious, ...
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Gnarly Buttons/Alleged Dances
from: Nonesuch
: essential recording:This 'EP' (about 27:00) contains just one work and sells for a reduced price. Astor Piazzolla wrote this music for himself to play with the Kronos Quartet. People who don't know Piazzolla's music might think this is just a collection of dances. But Piazzolla did for the tango what Chopin did for the polonaise, writing music of substance and passion that rewards repeated listening. I wish Nonesuch would reissue this disc combined with the its CD of Piazzolla orchestral works (now out of print, regrettably). But for the cautious, ...
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Kronos Quartet: At The Grave of Richard Wagner
: essential recording:This 'EP' (about 27:00) contains just one work and sells for a reduced price. Astor Piazzolla wrote this music for himself to play with the Kronos Quartet. People who don't know Piazzolla's music might think this is just a collection of dances. But Piazzolla did for the tango what Chopin did for the polonaise, writing music of substance and passion that rewards repeated listening. I wish Nonesuch would reissue this disc combined with the its CD of Piazzolla orchestral works (now out of print, regrettably). But for the cautious, ...
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Black Angels
from: Nonesuch
: essential recording:The title to Kronos's most bleak album comes from a nearly 20- minute-long composition by American composer George Crumb that unfolds over 13 distinct parts. That ominous number only hints at the horror Crumb intended as an ode to the Vietnam War. War informs the whole CD: Shostakovich's Quartet No. 8, composed near the height of the Cold War, in 1960, was dedicated 'to the victims of fascism and war.' 'Doom. A Sigh,' by Istvan Marta, incorporates field recordings of two Romanian women singing personal laments of fallen friends ...
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Velvet Dreams
from: Lisem Records
: essential recording:The title to Kronos's most bleak album comes from a nearly 20- minute-long composition by American composer George Crumb that unfolds over 13 distinct parts. That ominous number only hints at the horror Crumb intended as an ode to the Vietnam War. War informs the whole CD: Shostakovich's Quartet No. 8, composed near the height of the Cold War, in 1960, was dedicated 'to the victims of fascism and war.' 'Doom. A Sigh,' by Istvan Marta, incorporates field recordings of two Romanian women singing personal laments of fallen friends ...
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Diesel vehicles have nearly a 50-percent market share in Europe, thanks to tax incentives and diesel-friendly legislation across the EU. Diesels are so passé there that you can buy a BMW 730d and no one will think it odd that your luxury car burns oil. Pull up in a diesel 7-Series in America and people would leer at you like you've alighted from an amphibious vehicle reeking of saltwater and dead trout.