Three new CDs on Another Timbre now available - and they're all really beautiful imo:
at86x2 double CD Jurg Frey 'Grizzana and other pieces 2009-2014'
played by Ensemble Grizzana, who are Jurg himself (clarinet), Ryoko Akama (organ & electronics), Mira Benjamin (violin), Richard Craig (flute), Emma Richards (viola), Philip Thomas (piano) & Seth Woods (cello)
156 minutes of typically exquisite compositions, and typically featuring loads and loads of canons. Recorded in November 2014.
The ensemble will present a selection of pieces from the discs at this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 2015 (where Jurg is composer in residence).
More details, including an interview with Jurg by Brian Olewnick here: http://www.anothertimbre.com/freygrizzana.html
Youtube extracts: 'Grizzana' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvg31g5wrEQ
'Petit Fragment de Paysage' (version for violin & viola) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMnPN7Jbts
'Fragile Balance' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJPUjqQuYH8
at87 Magnus Granberg 'How Deep is the Ocean, How High is the Sky?'(2015)
A new work by Magnus for a 10-piece ensemble of baroque instruments, prepared piano, objects and electronics, recorded in January 2015 in Basel on the day of its first performance. A wonderful extended piece, combining elements of improvisation within a beautifully crafted structure, similar in mood to Magnus's work with Skogen, but with a distinct feel due to the unusual instrumentation.
Played by an unnamed ensemble convened specially for the project: Magnus Granberg (prepared piano), Cyril Bondi (objects & percussion), d'incise (objects & electronics),
Teresa Hacker (bass recorder), Wolfgang Hillemann (chitarrone), Anna Lindal (baroque violin), Hans-Jurg Meier (bass recorder), Anna-Kaisa Meklin (viola da gamba), Eric Ruffing (analogue synthesiser) & Christoph Schiller (spinet & objects)
More information and an interview with Magnus Granberg by Lawrence Dunn here: http://www.anothertimbre.com/granberghowdeep.html
Youtube extract (the opening 6 minutes) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-D1ig1grx0
at88 James Saunders 'assigned #15' (2015)
Played by Apartment House who in this configuration were: Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Bridget Carey (viola), Simon Limbrick (percussion), Nancy Ruffer (flutes), James Saunders (dictaphones and short-wave radio), Philip Thomas (piano) & Kerry Yong (chamber organ).
A piece that developed out of Saunders's long-term '#unassigned' series, which ran to 175 performances of unique pieces from 2000-2009. There's a great interview with James by Dominic Lash which explains more about how the piece was created here: http://www.anothertimbre.com/saundersassigned.html
Recorded in Huddersfield in April 2015. Youtube extract here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nyFFimNLkk
http://www.anothertimbre.com/
Plus there has recently been a really good piece of writing about several recent Another Timbre CDs by Paul Kilbey published on the Music and Literature website here: http://www.musicandliterature.org/revie ... her-timbre A very thoughtful and well-written assessment by someone who understands the label's aesthetic.
New CDs on Another Timbre: Frey, Granberg & Saunders
-
simon reynell
- Posts: 657
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 3:29 pm
-
simon reynell
- Posts: 657
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 3:29 pm
Re: New CDs on Another Timbre: Frey, Granberg & Saunders
Several good reviews of this batch already:
John Eyles reviews all three new discs in a long piece looking back at Another Timbre's history across over 100 releases here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/another-tim ... -eyles.php He comes up with a winning sentence about Jurg Frey's Grizzana: "It's beautifully simple and simply beautiful", but is equally keen on the other two discs.
Ben Harper also waxes lyrical on his 'Boring like a Drill' blog about both the James Saunders disc here: http://www.cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadr ... ed-15.html and about Grizzana here:http://www.cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadr ... -2014.html
Nathan Thomas at Fluid Radio also provides good, thoughtful reviews of both Grizzana (here:http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2015/07/jurg-frey-2/) and Magnus Granberg's wonderful 'How Deep is the Ocean, How High is the Sky?' here http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2015/07/magnus-granberg/
And finally (for now) ihm-er Gil Sanson wrote beautifully about Jurg Frey's Grizzana on Facebook: "Every epoch has to reinvent the notion of beauty. Perhaps actualize is a better word. In this day and age, big gestures like symphonic form have become somewhat tainted with the obsolescence of its structures, that have been throughly scrutinized as inherently abusive and outdated. But the fact remains that harmony as we know it is still the vehicle for a whole set of affects that can't be achieved in any other way. Beauty, of course, doesn't rely on a somewhat restrictive notion of western harmony, yet when a composer manages to actualize the idea of beauty using harmony, the possibility to retain the harmonic thread that has been ongoing for the past five hundred years seems to us as modern as the latest technological advance while keeping the impression of timelessness that all great works of art provide. Júrg Frey is doing precisely this. His work actualizes the idea of beauty by way of an engagement with the heritage of harmonic discourse that's exclusive to western European music, and doing it so in a way that also feels universal, something that anyone can take for his or her own. Few pieces of music manage this seemingly simple feat, and I'm sure this double CD on Another Timbre will yield many hours of aural pleasure for those with an ear for harmony."
That attention to how 'old' tools such as harmony, melody and tonality can be used in fresh new ways by experimental composers has somehow become a key question for me these days.
John Eyles reviews all three new discs in a long piece looking back at Another Timbre's history across over 100 releases here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/another-tim ... -eyles.php He comes up with a winning sentence about Jurg Frey's Grizzana: "It's beautifully simple and simply beautiful", but is equally keen on the other two discs.
Ben Harper also waxes lyrical on his 'Boring like a Drill' blog about both the James Saunders disc here: http://www.cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadr ... ed-15.html and about Grizzana here:http://www.cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadr ... -2014.html
Nathan Thomas at Fluid Radio also provides good, thoughtful reviews of both Grizzana (here:http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2015/07/jurg-frey-2/) and Magnus Granberg's wonderful 'How Deep is the Ocean, How High is the Sky?' here http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2015/07/magnus-granberg/
And finally (for now) ihm-er Gil Sanson wrote beautifully about Jurg Frey's Grizzana on Facebook: "Every epoch has to reinvent the notion of beauty. Perhaps actualize is a better word. In this day and age, big gestures like symphonic form have become somewhat tainted with the obsolescence of its structures, that have been throughly scrutinized as inherently abusive and outdated. But the fact remains that harmony as we know it is still the vehicle for a whole set of affects that can't be achieved in any other way. Beauty, of course, doesn't rely on a somewhat restrictive notion of western harmony, yet when a composer manages to actualize the idea of beauty using harmony, the possibility to retain the harmonic thread that has been ongoing for the past five hundred years seems to us as modern as the latest technological advance while keeping the impression of timelessness that all great works of art provide. Júrg Frey is doing precisely this. His work actualizes the idea of beauty by way of an engagement with the heritage of harmonic discourse that's exclusive to western European music, and doing it so in a way that also feels universal, something that anyone can take for his or her own. Few pieces of music manage this seemingly simple feat, and I'm sure this double CD on Another Timbre will yield many hours of aural pleasure for those with an ear for harmony."
That attention to how 'old' tools such as harmony, melody and tonality can be used in fresh new ways by experimental composers has somehow become a key question for me these days.
-
simon reynell
- Posts: 657
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 3:29 pm
Re: New CDs on Another Timbre: Frey, Granberg & Saunders
Fantastic review of Grizzana by Nick Cain in The Wire:
“Sheffield label Another Timbre is enjoying a bumper 2015, with John Tilbury and Philip Thomas’s marvelous double set of Morton Feldman’s piano works followed by a succession of standout releases from Frank Denyer, Common Objects, Magnus Granberg and James Saunders. The momentum is maintained with this substantial overview of the recent work of Jürg Frey, a Swiss composer who has a long and prolific association with the Wandelweiser imprint and collective.
Any typecast notions of spartan silence and schematic conceptualism are immediately dashed by ‘Grizzana and Other Pieces’, whose beguiling series of compositions are predicated to a surprising degree on conventional tonality, follow a discernible linear compositional logic, and happily deploy simple intervals and unadorned harmonic constructs to explore transparent contrasts in pitch and textural relationships. All ten may be Wandelweiser-like in their self-imposed limitations – most obviously a slowness of pacing and clear structural restraints – yet each is in different ways intensely sensuous, as well as preternaturally alert to the acoustic potential of spatial and dimensional divergences.
Performed sensitively by Ensemble Grizzana, the album is an epic study of fragile balances, to borrow one of the set’s titles. Even its most complex and multi-layered works – ‘Extended Circular Music No.8’ for septet and the seven part title track for sextet, both from 2014 – sound perilously collapsible and feather-light, assembling string and wind-drones and piano detailing into melodic convergences and shimmeringly dense drone harmonics.
‘A Memory of Perfection’ for solo violin from 2010 focuses on more stridulent textures, and other pieces examine degrees of fragmentation. ‘Lieues d’ombres’ for solo piano is a pointillistic arrangement of limpid chords, whose shifts in rhythmic patterns and mutating melodic linkages subtly though persistently threaten disintegration. The 31 minute ‘Area of Three’ for clarinet, piano and cello, falls apart before reconfiguring, its middle passage a flow of abstracted gestures separated by bouts of silence.
Harmony has the final say, however. Both discs are bookended by readings of ‘Petit fragment de paysage’ for duo, each by a different instrumental configuration. Simple in form, yet meticulously focused and detailed, its sustained chords and drones overlap in simple yet powerful, almost profound melodic confluences and counterpoints, in the process speaking eloquently to the virtues of restraint and engagement with tradition.”
If you haven't already bought it, you really should; it's a beaut.
“Sheffield label Another Timbre is enjoying a bumper 2015, with John Tilbury and Philip Thomas’s marvelous double set of Morton Feldman’s piano works followed by a succession of standout releases from Frank Denyer, Common Objects, Magnus Granberg and James Saunders. The momentum is maintained with this substantial overview of the recent work of Jürg Frey, a Swiss composer who has a long and prolific association with the Wandelweiser imprint and collective.
Any typecast notions of spartan silence and schematic conceptualism are immediately dashed by ‘Grizzana and Other Pieces’, whose beguiling series of compositions are predicated to a surprising degree on conventional tonality, follow a discernible linear compositional logic, and happily deploy simple intervals and unadorned harmonic constructs to explore transparent contrasts in pitch and textural relationships. All ten may be Wandelweiser-like in their self-imposed limitations – most obviously a slowness of pacing and clear structural restraints – yet each is in different ways intensely sensuous, as well as preternaturally alert to the acoustic potential of spatial and dimensional divergences.
Performed sensitively by Ensemble Grizzana, the album is an epic study of fragile balances, to borrow one of the set’s titles. Even its most complex and multi-layered works – ‘Extended Circular Music No.8’ for septet and the seven part title track for sextet, both from 2014 – sound perilously collapsible and feather-light, assembling string and wind-drones and piano detailing into melodic convergences and shimmeringly dense drone harmonics.
‘A Memory of Perfection’ for solo violin from 2010 focuses on more stridulent textures, and other pieces examine degrees of fragmentation. ‘Lieues d’ombres’ for solo piano is a pointillistic arrangement of limpid chords, whose shifts in rhythmic patterns and mutating melodic linkages subtly though persistently threaten disintegration. The 31 minute ‘Area of Three’ for clarinet, piano and cello, falls apart before reconfiguring, its middle passage a flow of abstracted gestures separated by bouts of silence.
Harmony has the final say, however. Both discs are bookended by readings of ‘Petit fragment de paysage’ for duo, each by a different instrumental configuration. Simple in form, yet meticulously focused and detailed, its sustained chords and drones overlap in simple yet powerful, almost profound melodic confluences and counterpoints, in the process speaking eloquently to the virtues of restraint and engagement with tradition.”
If you haven't already bought it, you really should; it's a beaut.