Michael Ernst – Excalibur, 2004

During the four years that separated Alexander Zemlinsky's Symphony in D minor and the premiere of the Symphony in B flat major (his first two efforts in the genre, aside from an incomplete work penned during his student years), the young composer had caught the eye and the fancy of the Viennese musical world. "The work's fresh, original ideas and genuinely exalted, youthful fire made a great impression on the audience and unleashed an intense salvo of applause," wrote one critic in response to the 1896 premiere of Zemlinsky's Waldegespräch (for soprano and chamber ensemble). These years also saw Zemlinsky winning two prestigious awards, the Luitpold Prize and the Beethoven Prize. His compositional skills had been refined during the mid 1890s as well. The Suite for Orchestra from 1895, for example, gave Zemlinsky an opportunity to create more adventurous orchestral colors than had been found in the admirable but conservative D minor Symphony. Thus, when one compares the B flat Symphony to his earlier symphonic effort, one notices that, while the same amalgamation of influences and styles is represented, more of the composer's own voice comes through – prompting one observer to suggest two different ways of looking at the work: "either as Zemlinsky's last early work or his first mature one."

A year – nearly to the day – after Epic released the single-disc Number Ones compilation in November 2003, the long-awaited Michael Jackson box set finally saw the light of day. Entitled The Ultimate Collection, the 57-track set spans five discs…

29 October 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.

The four works on this album, all composed in the 1940s, embrace the lingering end of one musical tradition and the vigorous upsurge of another. Mellifluous, retrospective and playful, the Duet Concertino and Prelude to Capriccio were works of Richard Strauss’s Indian Summer – an old man’s refuge from the barbarism of war and its aftermath. What the public thought of them was incidental, even irrelevant. In the same decade, Aaron Copland and other younger American composers were reaching out, via radio, recordings and film, to a new mass audience. The European influence of Appalachian Spring and the Clarinet Concerto, though inescapable, was minimised in a populist, vernacular idiom that absorbed native folk music and jazz.

Those with a just a passing interest in roots reggae are generally aware of Michael Rose's Grammy-winning group Black Uhuru, but the man himself doesn't have the same name recognition. With any luck, the grand Happiness: The Best of Michael Rose will change all that. A solo artist well before Uhuru, Michael Rose's output has equaled – and arguably topped – his work with Uhuru, and Happiness does a great job of representing. Kicking off with the original version of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and ending with the brilliant/quirky Fat Eyes production "Rough Life," Happiness brings to mind the mighty Bob Marley Legend compilation with its filler-free track listing. Just like Legend, Happiness is only an introduction to Rose, and while the man has released too many great, fully formed albums to say this is definitive, Happiness only misses the extended 12" side of his career and covers everything else splendidly.

This disc by Polish label CD Accord takes the listener on a non-chronological journey along the highways and byways of fugal history. 'The Art of Fugue' once again proves irresistible as a title, but as a musical form at least the fugue offers plenty of diversity and much scope for a composer's imagination. Many of the items in the programme are, to be sure, movements from larger works or arrangements, but the NFM Wroclaw Chamber Orchestra, a subset of the Witold Lutoslawski Philharmonic, has a dark-roasted expressive sound that brings out both the variety and detail in all these pieces.

A CD with orchestral works by Albert Lortzing should primarily include a CD with overtures to his operas. In addition to his stage works, which include interlude arias and incidental music, Lortzing almost exclusively composed works set to texts (choral works and art songs). In Leipzig, Lortzing soon realised that composing for publishers was a difficult, if not hopeless under­ taking — but nevertheless he was involved with it in the final year of his life — and he quickly became aware of the clear separation between the theatre and the Gewandhaus (Orchestra). “The orchestra is subservient to the music lovers’ concerts (which are important, of course) and the theatre, which brings the most income, is a secondary matter. If the Musikverein wants to pres­ent a concert, and the theatre director wants to present an opera at the same time, then the concert has first pri­ority and the opera audience has to be content with substitute orchestra members; I repeat — the theatre brings in 4 times as much money to the orchestra as the Musikverein. –“ (Lortzing’s letter to Anton Schindler in February 1834).

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin continues its PENTATONE Mozart series with the composer’s 29th and 33rd symphonies. These works are coupled with his ravishingly beautiful Clarinet Concerto, performed by Ernst Schlader in the original edition for basset clarinet. Schlader, a specialist in historical instruments, has written an essay on the basset clarinet for the album booklet that includes a rare historical image showing the original shape of the instrument used in the years after the concerto’s premiere. The first release of this series was longlisted for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Michael Musillami Octet - Spirits (2004) {Playscape Recordings PSR#J020104}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 336 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 136 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2004 Playscape Recordings | PSR#J020104
Jazz / Post-Bop / Modern Creative / Guitar

Recently called "one of the more imaginative guitarists in jazz" by Signal to Noise, Michael Musillami has earned a reputation as a leader with a quickly growing and diverse discography, recording in the last few years with every ensemble size from duo right up to his new all-star octet. Spirits is his most ambitious project to date, featuring seven exclusive reinventions of pieces by the late multi-instrumentalist and composer Thomas Chapin. The group features many notable players, including former Chapin sidemen Musillami, pianist Peter Madsen, and drummer Michael Sarin.