Penderecki In Memoriam Janiak

Alfred Schnittke - In Memoriam and Viola Concerto (1989) {BIS Schnittke Edition, BIS-447} (Item #4)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 177 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 150 Mb
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© 1989 Grammofon AB BIS | BIS-CD-447
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Orchestral

In Memoriam is the orchestral version of the Quintet with piano. It was G. Rozhdestvenski who asked Schnittke for an orchestration, the density of the expression being rich enough to support such a transfer (in this, I cannot help but think of the orchestrations of certain Shostakovich quartets by Barshai, the two composers sometimes having common traits). The piano part will be shared between winds and percussion. The strings would suffer little arrangement. The overall transcription remains literal, the instrumentation rich and colorful. This work, whose origin is the death of the composer's mother, is marked by great sadness and continuous darkness. The 5 movements are linked fairly quickly, the first and last are both moderato.

Chumbawamba - In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher EP
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 60 MB | Full Artwork: 13 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Not On Label # / | Country/Year: UK 2013
Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Rock, Non-Music, Folk | Style: Acoustic

Recorded in 2005 and orderable only in advance from the Chumbawamba website, to be delivered upon the death of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher died on Monday, 8th April 2013 and the CDs were mailed out the same day. Chumbawamba fans have received the Margaret Thatcher EP In Memoriam four years after pre-ordering the record. Fans first put in their orders after the alternative band from Burnley, best known for their 1997 hit “Tubthumping”, announced online in April 2009 that the memorial disk was “already recorded, pressed and ready to go”. Out of press and sale!

The Nursery (Russian: Детская, Detskaya, literally Children's [Room]) is a song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky set to his own lyrics, composed between 1868 and 1872. The cycle was published in two series. Only the first two songs survive of the second series. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, Schnittke’s experiments with form and compositional style produced several important works: the Violin Sonata “Quasi una sonata” (1968), the First Symphony (1969-72), the Suite in the Olden Style (1972), and the Requiem (1975). It was during this period that Schnittke composed In memoriam…, which he adapted from his Piano Quintet (1972-76).

Paul Dessau famously collaborated with Berthold Brecht, and his In memoriam Berthold Brecht is a skilled and moving orchestral work. It, and a number of his other pieces (two symphonies, orchestral songs), are excellently performed by soprano Ksenija Lukic, mezzo Manuela Bress, with pianist Holger Groschopp in Les Voix for soprano, piano and orchestra, with Roger Epple leading the German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin. The symphonies, dating from 1926 and 1934 (with a movement in memory of Bartók in Bulgarian rhythm added in 1962) are easy, if not fascinating, to listen to but not as memorable as the songs. Excellent sound.

Paul Turok @ Turok’s Choice

Arámbarri is best known as a conductor but this disc of his own compositions is an absolute peach. Following on from the Naxos Guridi disc, this confirms what a great and rich musical heritage the peoples of the Basque lands, straddling France and Spain, have to bring to us. Much of the music here reminds me more of the former than the latter, with the lighter Milhaud a particularly significant comparator for the folk-based suites. This whole disc is absolutely compulsive as far as this listener is concerned, a superbly …….. Highly recommended.

Neil Horner@musicweb-international.com