Make: Musical Inventions

On his new album 'Inventions/Reinventions,' pianist-composer DanTepfer performs each of Bach's beloved 15 Two Part Inventions interleaved in chromatic sequence by 9 of his own free improvisations in the "missing" keys to create a new full, and fully transporting 24-key experience, a 55-minute mix of the timeless and the contemporary. 300 years ago in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach initially composed his Two Part Inventions as keyboard exercises for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

We go right back to the beginning of Aho’s musical career with the first quintet on this disc, composed in 1973. In his booklet notes Aho confesses his love for the oboe; as with the tuba in the Tuba Concerto, he took the trouble to familiarise himself with the oboe's capabilities, the idea being to ‘extend the instrument’s expressive range’.
The first of the two movements opens with a bright, songful introduction on the oboe, soon underpinned by the warm strings. As with the orchestral works there is a remarkable clarity to the writing and a real sense of musical purpose. Even in the extended and more animated passages there is a lively dialogue between oboe and strings, at times building to moments of great intensity.

In the Inventions, Jansen is an equal partner with violist Maxim Rysanov and cellist Torleif Thedéen in performances of wit, feeling, and subtle grace. In the Partita and especially its excruciatingly ecstatic Chaconne, Jansen delivers consummate musicality and surpassing emotional honesty. Decca's sound is close and evocative.

Constance Demby is one of the few representatives of the New Age movement (in both her music and her personal philosophies) who consistently creates artistic, highly expressive compositions. Demby was trained in classical music as a child, and her artistic spirit led her to also master several other art forms; at the University of Michigan, she studied painting, sculpture, and music. It was her work as a sculptor that led her to new dimensions of sound. As she was torching a sheet of metal, it roared thunderously, and thus was born the Sonic Steel Instruments: the Whale Sail, and the Space Bass, enormous bowed instruments with deep archetypal resonances.