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Lark Quartet: Composing America

Lark Quartet

Lark Quartet: Composing America

Format: CD
Label: Bridge
UPC: 0090404942327
Catnr: BRIDG 9423
Release date: 25 April 2014
1 CD
 
Label
Bridge
UPC
0090404942327
Catalogue number
BRIDG 9423
Release date
25 April 2014
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
DE

About the album

One might be forgiven for finding the title Composing America a tad ambitious; it begs a number of questions, not the least of which is “just whose America is this”? The music on this varied, imaginative CD answers that question definitively: this is an America of vital, forcefully argued concert music with roots deep in the American vernacular. Each work, to varying degrees, presents the listener with a distinct transformation of the popular and folk musics that have defined America. Promising to deliver “a performance of grace, proportion and burnished brilliance” (The Washington Post), The Lark Quartet continues to delight audiences with its energy, passionate commitment and artistry.
Die Musikerinnen des Lark Quartett warten hier mit Werken amerikanischer Komponisten auf, die die Bandbreite des musikalischen Kontinents aufzeigt.
Die vielfältige phantsievolle CD zeigt, wie vital, kraftvoll die Konzertmusik auch aus den amerikanischen Wurzeln schöpft.

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, pianist, conductor and music pedagogue, who is regarded as the most important representative of the American modern composers, who are known for their preference for theatre music. Critics and peers referred to him as ‘the Dean of American Composers’. During the 1920s Copland studied three years with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Her total grasp of classical music became his most important influence, and led him to compose music in various genres and numerous settings, including opera, ballet, music for film, theatre, orchestra, piano and small ensemble. During his studies in Paris Copland encountered the music of Ravel, Satie, and the members of Les Six, which impressed him. However, his greatest hero and favorite 20th-century composer...
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Aaron Copland was an American composer, pianist, conductor and music pedagogue, who is regarded as the most important representative of the American modern composers, who are known for their preference for theatre music. Critics and peers referred to him as ‘the Dean of American Composers’.
During the 1920s Copland studied three years with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Her total grasp of classical music became his most important influence, and led him to compose music in various genres and numerous settings, including opera, ballet, music for film, theatre, orchestra, piano and small ensemble. During his studies in Paris Copland encountered the music of Ravel, Satie, and the members of Les Six, which impressed him. However, his greatest hero and favorite 20th-century composer was not French: it was the Russian Igor Stravinsky. Copland admired him for his typically Russian music, and wanted to express the music of his native country in his compositions just like him. For that purpose he drew inspiration from jazz, which rhythms and harmonies can be found in his early compositions.
During the 1930s and 1940s, when Copland had returned to America, the jazz gave way to (Latin) American folk tunes, which he arranged in a number of accessible compositions , which made him well-known to a wide audience: the ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring, the Third Symphony, El Salón México and the Fanfare for the Common Man. These are Copland’s best known works, which are still regularly performed and recorded.
During the 1950s Copland distanced himself from the popular tendencies in his compositions, and began to use serialist and twelve-tone techniques in his music in an attempt to join the modern composers.
From the 1960s onwards Copland began to focus on conducting, since he did not have any new ideas for compositions. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the United States and made a series of recordings of his music.

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John Adams

The American composer, conductor and creative thinker John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. His symphonic and operatic works stand out for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. The music of  Adams has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his American surroundings. This music is often classified as minimalistic, however, while Adams employs minimalist techniques, he is not a strict follower of the movement. He categorizes himself as a post-style composer. Adams is a much sought-after conductor, appearing with the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Royal...
more
The American composer, conductor and creative thinker John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. His symphonic and operatic works stand out for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. The music of Adams has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his American surroundings. This music is often classified as minimalistic, however, while Adams employs minimalist techniques, he is not a strict follower of the movement. He categorizes himself as a post-style composer.
Adams is a much sought-after conductor, appearing with the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He conducts his own compositions, and combines them with a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Ives, Stravinsky, Zappa and Ellington. Through his conducting and commissioning of new works, Adams has become a significant mentor of the younger generation of American composers. Adams is also a highly esteemed writer. He has written for The London Times and The New Yorker, and published his much praised book Hallelujah Junction, containing his memoirs and his commentary on American musical life.
Orchestras and opera companies all around the United States and Europe mark Adams' 70th birthday year, 2017, with performances of his compositions.

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