For those of you who are fans of violinist Philippe Quint he will be interviewed on the television program Night Talk that airs on Bloomberg Television this evening (05.29.08) at 10 PM ET. http://www.bloomberg.com/tvradio/tv/

This entry was written by our guest-blogger, composer Sean Hickey. Sean, who is Naxos’ Eastern Territory Manager, has a unique perspective on music and how to balance working a “day job” with the rigours of being a musician as well. A number of us at Naxos, myself included (although I compose popular music these days, having given up concert music years ago), play this balancing act. That said one of the great perks of working at Naxos is all the music you are exposed to.

I’ve been listening to a lot of new things lately, or music new to me. Huge reams of eye opening orchestral and chamber music. Lots of stuff I’ve never heard including great sets of symphonies of Tansman and Weinberg, two immensely talented composers that get scarcely a mention in the history books, if they’re mentioned at all. One of the greatest pleasures of working for Naxos is to sample an immense variety of music that’s largely been ignored, and to revisit some classics in some new recordings. To the former category I must include a new disc of works of Ernst Toch; a Greek composer new to me, Dmitris Dragatakis, and a mountain of a piece, Fred Rzewski’s The People United Will Never be Defeated!, performed by the amazing Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat. This is one of those seminal works that I was proud to know of, but embarrassed to admit I’ve never actually heard. All of the composition and pianistic virtuosity aside, I find the work immensely moving and it certainly seems to have a special resonance now.

To the latter category I would add a fine new recording of the Second and Third Symphonies of Karol Szymanowski, Antoni Wit leading the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. This is perhaps the most vivid recording of his orchestral works since Simon Rattle’s landmark Third Symphony/Stabat Mater on EMI years ago.

Chamber and small ensemble music from the Baroque era is generally not something that interests me tremendously, but I’ve been bowled over the beauty of a new recording of the C.P.E Bach Viola de Gamba sonatas, recorded on the cello by cellist Dmitry Kouzov, accompanied on the piano and harpsichord by Peter Laul. Full disclosure: Dima is a great friend and has commissioned a concerto from me and I’ve had the immense benefit of working on the concerto with him directly. But perhaps what has most informed the recent pages of my work is the lyricism and subtle grace of his C.P.E. Bach recording. It has altered the very foundations of my new piece. Do check it out if you can.

Lastly, clarinetist David Gould will record a disc of American works for clarinet and string quartet for Naxos. The disc will include my Clarinet Concerto, commissioned by the soloist in 2007. I hope to be able to report more on this soon.

To some, Frederic Rzewski might seem like a composer full of contradictions. His music, after all, includes minimalist and quasi-serialist works as well as collage-type pieces. For example, we all discovered during the pre-concert chat with series producer Ara Guzelimian that Elliott Carter has been a long time friend and mentor to Rzewski. I was surprised. But Kyle Gann, in his essay to the program “Never Second-Guessing Rzewski,” notes “It is typical of Rzewski that he has refused to be limited by even the humanist realist aesthetic that he created. Like Stravinsky, he has shown contrarian fearlessness about walking away from styles his music has made popular. ”

When asked about music and politics, Rzewski stated “Music really can’t be political … theater, perhaps, can be.” And in works like Attica (1972), Spots (1986), and the newer Natural Things (2007) you can see how he brings music and theater together–beautifully. Attica, the earliest work performed, consists of a repetitive tonal sequence set against the intoned narration “Attica is in front of me” (a quote, according to the liner notes, taken from the statement of Richard X. Clark, one of the prison uprising’s organizers). While an extremely moving and beautiful work, I’m afraid that unlike most of the audience–and Times reporter Allan Kozinn–I was not as impressed by Stephen ben Israel’s narration (he was the work’s original narrator). I would be curious to hear of other reactions to ben Israel’s performance, as it was abundantly clear to me that I was absolutely in the minority on this.

I was only acquainted with Rzewski’s piano works before this concert, and it was wonderful to see he treats other instruments. I absolutely loved how he uses the human body as an instrument. For example, in Natural Things (commissioned by Opus 21), Rzewski has the string players breathe and/or sigh as they play glissandi. He also has the performers clap and stamp, creating a choreography, which then becomes part of the music, and use their voices creatively–talking, whispering, layering dialogue contrapuntally. I found his use of non-musical objects refreshing and fun: cans, a megaphone, and even a basketball in Spots. (Does anyone know if both Spots and Natural Things were both orchestrated by Richard Adams, composer and founder of Opus 21? I know they mentioned he had arranged one of the pieces.)

For my taste, I did not care for the 2008 piano work War Songs. It seemed more like a work-in-progress to me, and one which didn’t yet have an emotional center.

Finally, I was somewhat baffled by the instrument set up for a work I dearly love, Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, which Rzewski and Stephen Drury performed in a two-piano arrangement from 1980. I asked Jed Distler about this in an e-mail, and he assured me that it was “arbitrary.” If that is the case, and the set-up was meant to cut down on the time moving other instruments out of the way, I think it didn’t serve this arrangement well. Usually with two-piano works, pianos are arranged closer together so that both artists can communicate in some fashion. Clearly, the sonorities called for in Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues would make a very close arrangement of the instruments impractical. However, the pianos were so far apart, it seemed as if both players had to guess at each other’s breathing. I’m also not sure the arrangement gave them the sonic quality they sought. Any thoughts from others who attended the performance would be welcome here.

On a different, but related note: We’ve gotten a lot of wonderful comments about pianist Ralph van Raat’s recent Naxos recording of The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Naxos 8559360). However, many people have requested the timings for all of the variations. Ralph sent them to me in an e-mail last week, and they are pasted below:

Timelist Rzewski’s People United…
Theme (0.00-1′35″)

1 (1′35″-2′37″)
2 (2′37″-3′32″)
3 (3′32″-4′54″)
4 (4′54″-5′56″)
5 (5′56″-7′11″)
6 (7′11″-8′25″)

7 (8′25″-9′20″)
8 (9′20″-10′39″)
9 (10′39″-12′18″)
10 (12′18″-13′28″)
11 (13′28″-14′23″)
12 (14′23″-15′39″)

13 (15′39″-17′33″)
14 (17′33″-18′50″)
15 (18′50″-20′29″)
16 (20′29″-22′08″)
17 (22′08″-23′22″)
18 (23′22″-25′15″)

19 (25′15″-25′56″)
20 (25′56″-26′34″)
21 (26′34″-27′36″)
22 (27′36″-28′24″)
23 (28′24″-28′53″)
24 (28′53″-31′55″)

25 (31′55″-34′31″)
26 (34′31″-35′44″)
27 (35′44″-41′08″)
28 (41′08″-42′31″)
29 (42′31″-43′00″)
30 (43′00″-45′35″)

31 (45′35″-46′34″)
32 (46′34″-47′42″)
33 (47′42″-48′57″)
34 (48′57″-50′09″)
35 (50′09″-51′18″)
36 (51′18″-53′06″)

Improvised cadenza (53′06″-59′16″)

UNABRIDGED VERSUS ABRIDGED. It is a discussion as old as audiobooks.

It is partly about simple commerce – unabridged audiobooks can seem high priced, though the hours fly by. But it is also about convenience: I think there is still a place for abridged texts, for not everyone wants to listen to twenty-eight or thirty hours of a novel.

However, I am glad to say that the advent of downloads, and a greater appreciation of the full work, has seen the audience for unabridged texts on audiobook grow.

This has resulted in trips down memory lane for me, because I find that not only are we doing novels which we did in abridged form in the early years of Naxos AudioBooks, but we are recording them, often, with the same actors – though sometimes a new voice takes up the baton.

This is true of two of this month’s recordings: Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse read by Juliet Stevenson and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer read by Garrick Hagon.

It is a coincidence that we are releasing new unabridged recordings of these masterpieces with the original readers, but in both cases, the abridged recordings were the first to introduce us to readers who have featured regularly on Naxos AudioBooks in the decade and more that followed.

Read the rest of this entry »

HOW IMPORTANT – HOW TRUE? – are newspaper/magazine reviews of new audiobooks? After all, they are but one person’s response to a book and its performance.

Since we began, Naxos AudioBooks has received a continuous stream of good reviews, and 2008 has been no different: there have been numerous plaudits worldwide, but particularly in the UK and US.

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