Stephen Hartke - The Horse with the Lavender Eye - Chandos: CHAN10513 - download

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The performances are precise and probing, abetted by lucid sound and a booklet-note from Xak Bjerken that offers context and poses questions in equal measure. — Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

Release Date: 2nd Feb 2009
Catalogue No: CHAN10513
Label: Chandos
Length: 64 minutes

Hartke: The Horse with the Lavender Eye

Work length17:33

$4.20

$5.20

Ellen Jewett, Richard Faria, Xak Bjerken

I. Music of the Left. Left-handed

Track length2:27

$1.05

$1.30

II. The Servant of Two Masters. Quite manic

Track length4:27

$1.05

$1.30

III. Waltzing at the Abyss. Gingerly, but always moving along

Track length3:58

$1.05

$1.30

IV. Cancel My Rumba Lesson. Two Left Feet

Track length6:41

$1.05

$1.30

Hartke: Post-modern Homages

Work length13:07

$5.25

$6.50

Xak Bjerken

I. Sonatina-Fantasia . Giubilante

Track length3:48

$1.05

$1.30

II. Gymnopédie No. 4 . Suave

Track length3:08

$1.05

$1.30

III. Template . Presto

Track length3:15

$1.05

$1.30

IV. Estudo-Scherzo in B-Flat Minor. Presto-leggiero

Track length1:26

$1.05

$1.30

V. Sonatina DCXL . Boppin' along

Track length1:30

$1.05

$1.30

Hartke: Piano Sonata

Work length13:18

$3.15

$3.90

Xak Bjerken

I. Prelude. Massive

Track length2:59

$1.05

$1.30

II. Scherzo. Epicycles, Tap-dancing, and a Soft Shoe. Deft and lively

Track length6:09

$1.05

$1.30

III. Postlude. Floating

Track length4:10

$1.05

$1.30

Hartke: The King of the Sun

Work length20:02

$6.30

$7.80

Los Angeles Piano Quartet, Michi Wiancko

I. Personage in the night guided by the phosphorescent tracks of snails. Stealthily

Track length2:17

$1.05

$1.30

II. Dutch interior. Phantasmagorical

Track length3:08

$1.05

$1.30

III. Dancer listening to the organ in a Gothic cathedral. Granitic

Track length5:45

$1.05

$1.30

Interlude

Track length0:57

$1.05

$1.30

IV. The flames of the sun make the desert flower hysterical. Fiery

Track length3:38

$1.05

$1.30

V. Personages and birds rejoicing at the arrival of night. Quietly energetic, with an air of innocence

Track length4:17

$1.05

$1.30

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‘If constructing organic structures is one challenge facing today’s composer, finding a distinctive musical voice is another. Stephen Hartke has one… Authenticity is a difficult quality to account for, but Hartke’s music is guileless and affecting.’ New York Times.

Stephen Hartke is widely recognised as one of the leading composers of his generation, whose work has been hailed for both its singularity and the inclusive breadth of its inspiration. The result is an individual musical voice – one of melody with colour, reflecting two great individualists, Bartok and Messiaen, and an affection for non-Western music. In addition, his openness to a blend of the abstract and the sacred, and his disregard for the boundaries between high and low art, is heard in his varied output. This collection offers the listener different sides to Hartke’s chamber music composition performed by America’s premier piano quartet, Los Angeles Piano Quartet.

The surreal trio The Horse with the Lavender Eye of 1997 here receives is premiere recording. It counts amongst its bewildering array of inspirations a play by Carlo Goldoni, Japanese court music, the cartoons of Robert Crumb, and Looney Tunes. Hartke explains ‘All the movements have to do in one way or another with a sense of being off-balance – playing music with only one side of the body; being caught between insistent and conflicting demands… nonetheless, in the very end, a sense of calm and equilibrium comes to prevail.’ Post-Modern Homages for solo piano also receive their premiere recording. Despite the title they were not written as a set, and thus the piano writing is very different in each piece, but they share a common feature: each was composed for a friend, and each transforms aspects of an existing piece of music, for example Gymnopédie No.4 evokes Erik Satie. Hartke’s other major work for solo piano is the vivid Sonata for Piano, cast in three movements, the central movement with a muscularity and elegant ease that brings to mind the dancing of Gene Kelly. The final work is The King of the Sun, a work written for the Los Angeles Piano Quartet. Inspired by paintings by Miro, the work is of humorous spirit. The New York Times said of the work, ‘Here and there, one could here intimations of composers as diverse as Olivier Messiaen and Steve Reich, and idioms as far afield as gospel and jazz. Yet the writing sounded coherent and vigorously expressive, not afraid of dissonance but not obsessed with chromatic fragmentation, either.’

Reviews

April 2009

The performances are precise and probing, abetted by lucid sound and a booklet-note from Xak Bjerken that offers context and poses questions in equal measure.

Stephen Hartke - The Horse with the Lavender Eye

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