Piano Hive

Inspiration is trombonist/composer/bandleader Phil Ranelin's first self-led studio date in eight years. His last, A Close Encounter of the Very Best Kind, was solid and wonderfully articulated and arranged, but was criminally under-recognized. Ranelin's star has been on the rise again in recent years with renewed interest in his recordings on Detroit's legendary Tribe Records imprint (which he co-founded)–reissued on the Hefty and P-VIne labels. Wide Hive has given Ranelin free rein in creating this tribute to his mentors and peers.

Jean Sibelius - Piano Music Vol. 5 - Håvard Gimse (2004) {Naxos 8.555853}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 173 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 138 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 39 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2004 Naxos | 8.555853
Classical / Late Romantic / Early Modern / Piano

All the pieces recorded here come from the 1920s, the period of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, and are rarities. Among the finest are the Five Sketches, which come from the very end of the decade and more among Sibelius’s last published works. They may be slight but they are highly individual and hive great finesse. The Village Church from Op. 103 has overtones of the Andante festivo for strings, and The Oarsman seems to ruminate on ideas in the Seventh Symphony. Sibelius’s piano-writing may have evoked little enthusiasm during his lifetime and it is true that, by the exalted standards he set elsewhere, it is limited in resource and scale. But pieces like In Mournful Mood and Landscape from Op. 114 are curiously haunting. So is the rest of the Op. 114 set, and its neglect has been our loss.

Overlapping textures and soft, shifting timbres are the most recognizable features of Morton Feldman's music, and his attractive sonorities draw listeners in ways other avant-garde sound structures may not. This music's appeal is also attributable to its gentle ambience, a static, meditative style that Feldman pioneered long before trance music became commonplace. The three works on this disc are among Feldman's richest creations, yet the material in each piece is subtly layered and integrated so well that many details will escape detection on first hearing. In Piano and Orchestra, the piano is treated as one texture among many, receding to the background and blending with muted brass and woodwinds in a wash of colors. Cello and Orchestra might seem like a conventional concerto movement, especially since the cellist is centrally placed on this recording and plays with a rather lyrical tone. However, Feldman's orchestral clusters are dense and interlocked, which suggests that the cello should be less prominent and blend more into the mass of sounds behind it. No such ambiguity exists in the performance of Coptic Light, which Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony Orchestra play with even dynamics and careful attention to the work's aggregate effect, which is mesmerizing.

Roscoe Mitchell With Ostravaska Banda Performing Distant Radio Transmission Also Nonaah Trio, And 8.8.88 ''Cutouts For Woodwind Quintet'' is only available on the CD version of this recording.