Category Archives: Music

Leon Fleisher’s American Album: Aaron Copland, Piano Sonata; Roger Sessions, From My Diary; Leon Kirchner, Piano Sonata; Ned Rorem, Three Barcarolles

American music of the twentieth century, at least that variety that styles itself “serious” music, is inhabited by a range of highly independent composers. One of its most notable aspects, in fact, is its resistance to “schools” outside of the … Continue reading

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Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote, Sonata for Cello and Piano; Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, Op. 18; George Enescu’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor, Op. 25

Richard Strauss, to me, is one of those protean composers who developed in the artistic ferment of Europe that stretched from the 1890s to the years encompassing World War I. He was, at least as much as any of his … Continue reading

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Martti Vesala Soundpost Quintet’s Helsinki Soundpost

Finnish trumpeter Martti Vesala attempted to capture the sounds and flavors of his home base Helsinki with a classic jazz quintet. The aural picture that emerges on Helsinki Soundpost is a delightful tour. This talented young horn player fronts the … Continue reading

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Richard Thompson’s Acoustic Classics Vol. II

Richard Thompson follows up his popular Acoustic Classics release from 2014 with a second volume, aptly titled Acoustic Classics Vol. II. It’s a handpicked selection of some of his currently most popular songs from his solo acoustic performances, hitting all … Continue reading

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Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings: Orchestral and Chamber Works

Samuel Barber is one of those composers I haven’t paid enough attention to, except for the Adagio for Strings, which at its best is an overwhelming piece of music — but more on that later. Barber was born into comfortable … Continue reading

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Thomas Barth’s Beyond Black & White

It is sometimes very difficult to get past the packaging of recordings to the substance (if there is substance, which is not always the case), particularly when dealing with new age music (“new age” being one of those categories we … Continue reading

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The Ivory Consort’s Music from the Land of Three Faiths

(This review was written by Leonora Rose for a previous incarnation of the Green Man Review.) In 711 AD, Spain was conquered by the Muslims, who managed to make of it one of the few places in which the three … Continue reading

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The Tallis Scholars’ The Tallis Scholars Sing Josqin

Josqin des Pres (1450?-1521) was born Josqin Lebloitte, either in Hainault (modern Belgium) or in France. (The “des Pres” was a nickname, as they understood such things in the fifteenth century.) He seems to have been a choirboy at Saint-Quentin … Continue reading

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Frank Wallace’s Delphín

In “classical” music, recent decades have witnessed a string of revivals, from Wanda Landowska’s researches and stellar performances of music for the harpsichord and Vladimir Horowitz’s performances of Scarlatti through the burgeoning interest in plainsong and chant (including the disco … Continue reading

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Coyote Oldman’s Tear of the Moon, Compassion, Floating on Evening: Songs from Otter River

I learned a very important concept about making art in a dance class, studying butoh, the contemporary Japanese dance-theater that is at once highly abstract and fundamentally impressionistic: evocation. Our movements were not to describe an action, but to evoke … Continue reading

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