John Harle

After her sensational performance at last night’s BAFTAs, inspiring young classical saxophonist Jess Gillam announces the release of her debut album ‘Rise’ on 26th April on Decca Classics. It is a collection of pieces which showcase her phenomenal talent and diverse musical taste, ranging from Marcello and Shostakovich to David Bowie and Kate Bush.

The featured composition is 'African Sunrise/Manhattan Rave, concerto for solo percussion & orchestra' and is a work for taped sounds of the streets of New York, various 'found' percussive instruments (barrels, cans, etc) as well as standard timpani and the vast array of orchestral percussion instruments.

VA - Short Cuts: Breaking The Sound Barrier
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 315 MB | Full Artwork: 88 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Argo # 443 396-2 ZX | Country/Year: Germany 1994
Genre: Classical | Style: Contemporary

Excerpts from the works of contemporary composers featured on the Argo label.

2016 ten CD set. Trials Of Eyeliner is the definitive overview of Marc Almond's career, and the fact that Almond himself has personally curated the collection, allied to the 189-strong track listing, suggests that this is no exaggeration. Neal X, Almond's longstanding writing partner/musical director (and former Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist), supervised mastering of the tracks recorded over five decades between 1979 and 2016. This anthology is divided into three themed sections.

Philips's collection of major works that have propelled Gavin Bryars to New Music stardom is an effective overview of his music. The longest work is his Cello Concerto, handsomely played by Julian Lloyd Webber with a big, colorful tone and sustained intensity throughout its contemplative half-hour. A comparable mood pervades the bright tintinnabulating textures of the whimsically titled One Last Bar, Then Joe Can Sing. Similar as well, in their attractive serenity and suppressed sadness, are many of the other works here, prime among them the viola concerto in all but name, The North Shore, a tone painting of the rugged cliffs of northeast England. Adnan Songbook, settings of six poems by Lebanese poet Etel Adnan, are beautifully sung by soprano Valerie Anderson and delicately scored for a small ensemble. Bryars's biggest hits, The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, have inspired him to numerous reworkings and capsuled fragments. They're represented by Titanic Lament, depicting a hymn tune dissolving into gray, watery textures, and two very different four-minute versions of Jesus' Blood, both with Tom Waits.

It's a tall order to compile the best classical music of the twentieth century, but EMI has selected its top 100 classics for this six-disc set, and it's difficult to argue with most of the choices. Without taking sides in the great ideological debates of the modern era – traditionalist vs. avant-garde, tonal vs. atonal, styles vs. schools, and so on – the label has picked the composers whose reputations seem most secure at the turn of the twenty-first century and has chosen representative excerpts of their music. Certainly, the titans of modernism are here, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, and Benjamin Britten, to name just a few masters, but they don't cast such a large shadow that they eclipse either their more backward-looking predecessors or their more experimental successors.

When it comes to the soprano saxophone, some of us might think right off the bat of New Orleans legend Sidney Bechet, which is good. But most think of Kenny G, which is not so good. When it comes to women who play the saxophone, we might think of Candy Dulfer, who is definitely a good player. However, she has a tendency to be ruthlessly commercial and suave, and perhaps that's also not so good. With Australian Amy Dickson we discover a female soprano saxophonist who is offering something far different from either of these mixed options; her main focus is with classical literature, and Dickson has a luscious, creamy tone that sounds somewhere between a clarinet and a flute, reflecting the instrument in the light of the intentions of its creator, Adolphe Sax; even Bechet would have found it tough to beat that action.