Memorias by clair-obscur saxophone quartet

Various composers

clair-obscur saxophone quartet

Memorias

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 4260085534869
Catnr: AVI 8553486
Release date: 09 April 2021
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1 CD ✓ in stock	€ 19.95	Buy

Label
CAvi

UPC
4260085534869

Catalogue number
AVI 8553486

Release date
09 April 2021

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
Memorias in 6 TABLEAUX
PERSONAL NOTES by clair-obscur – Saxophone Quartet

Memorias I
Memorias is clair-obscur’s birthday present for Astor Piazzolla, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2021. A manera de memorias is the title of Argentinean author Natalio Gorín’s anthology of interviews with Astor Piazzolla from the 1990s.

That book gave us the idea to record this album, which provides the listener with comprehensive insights into Piazzolla’s musical environment. For the
album Memorias, clair-obscur has taken Piazzolla’s six most important musical models and placed their works alongside his own in six musical tableaux.

The connections can be easy to spot; at other times, they are more subtle. Invariably, however, a novel, unexpected musical context allows us to hear Piazzolla’s music in a different way, with a fresh approach. Each of these musical tableaux is introduced by an original interview quote from the book A manera de memorias.

Memorias II
Memorias is clair-obscur’s birthday present to itself. This is the tenth album that clair-obscur has recorded in its current line-up, and we release it on the occasion of the quartet’s 20th birthday in the year 2021.

Many of the pieces on this recording have long been part of clair-obscur’s core repertoire. Memorias is a musical retrospect of 20 years of making music together. (excerpt from the Booklet’s liner notes)

Artist(s)

Clair-Obscur Saxophone Quartet

Jan Schulte-Bunert soprano saxophone · Maike Krullmann alto saxophone Christoph Enzel tenor saxophone · Kathi Wagner baritone saxophone For many years, the clair-obscur saxophone quartet has been one of the most renowned ensembles of its kind, as proven by its appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Lucerne Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The top-notch musicianship of its individual members, who teach at several music universities and who regularly team up to form the Berliner Philharmoniker saxophone section, is heightened even more when they play together. Clair-obscur was the first saxophone quartet to have been admitted to the chamber music exam at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin, where they were trained by Prof. Friedemann Weigle (Artemis Quartet). Weigle blended...

The top-notch musicianship of its individual members, who teach at several music universities and who regularly team up to form the Berliner Philharmoniker saxophone section, is heightened even more when they play together.
Clair-obscur was the first saxophone quartet to have been admitted to the chamber music exam at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin, where they were trained by Prof. Friedemann Weigle (Artemis Quartet). Weigle blended the four entirely different characters into a unity, giving them the courage to think independently – the ability to “rock n’ roll”, as he put it. The quartet went on to win a series of national and international competitions.

Clair-obscur’s outstanding quality, flexibility, and stylistic assurance enable the quartet to tackle every kind of music style “without blinders” at top performance level. The ensemble knows no taboos, playing what pleases them the most and thereby continually proving that audiences can be won over by any kind of music, provided it is well-played and well-presented.

It also has to sound good: clair-obscur writes ideal arrangements for itself (which are now being taken up by other ensembles), and they help the audience forget that all they have in front of them is “just a simple quartet”.

Thanks to clair-obscur’s unique sound, their congenially precise phrasing after twenty uninterrupted years of ensemble collaboration, and their laid-back, joyfully humorous stage presence, each of their recitals is transformed into an unforgettable experience.

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Composer(s)

Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer, who is mostly known due to his combinations of classical and popular music genres. George Gershwin grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York. His parents were Russian immigrants who had trouble making ends meet. They did, however, decide to purchase an old piano so Ira Gershwin could study to become a musician. Yet, it turned out not Ira, but his younger brother George showed remarkable talent. Ira applied himself to writing song lyrics and together the Gershwin brothers became absolute greats in the world of 20th century musicals. Nowadays, George's compositions are still relevant, as is evidenced by the many performances of his Rhapsody in Blue from 1924. But the best example is the ageless Summtertime,...

George Gershwin was an American composer, who is mostly known due to his combinations of classical and popular music genres.

George Gershwin grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York. His parents were Russian immigrants who had trouble making ends meet. They did, however, decide to purchase an old piano so Ira Gershwin could study to become a musician. Yet, it turned out not Ira, but his younger brother George showed remarkable talent. Ira applied himself to writing song lyrics and together the Gershwin brothers became absolute greats in the world of 20th century musicals. Nowadays, George's compositions are still relevant, as is evidenced by the many performances of his Rhapsody in Blue from 1924. But the best example is the ageless Summtertime, which has been covered a countless number of times by a countless number of artists.

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Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (Spanish pronunciation April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983) was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires to a Catalan father and an Italian mother. During the last few years of his life, he preferred to pronounce his surname in its Catalan pronunciation, with a soft 'G' as in 'George' rather than a Spanish 'J' sound. In fact this would be the local Argentine pronunciation of his name if it were spelled Yinastera or Llinastera.
Ginastera studied at the conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. As a young professor, he taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. After a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires and co-founded the League of Composers. He held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941), Alcides Lanza, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova and Rafael Aponte-Ledée. See: List of music students by teacher: G to J#Alberto Ginastera.
Ginastera moved back to the United States in 1968 and then in 1970 to Europe. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 67 and was buried in the Cimetière des Rois there.

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