Carl Ruggles

All four American composers on this new album by the Basque National Orchestra and conductor Robert Trevino wrote music that was known, played and esteemed during their lifetimes, but none of them ever had a huge 'hit': the pieces here are likely familiar only to musical scholars. Yet while it is uncommon enough to find Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson sharing the same album, the conductor Robert Trevino has taken his exploration still further, into the recesses of their repertory – complete with a Hanson piece, Before the Dawn, that has had to wait a century for this, its premiere recording. Robert Trevino’s debut album with the Basque National Orchestra on Ondine featured orchestral works by Maurice Ravel and has received excellent reviews in music media around the world.

All four American composers on this new album by the Basque National Orchestra and conductor Robert Trevino wrote music that was known, played and esteemed during their lifetimes, but none of them ever had a huge 'hit': the pieces here are likely familiar only to musical scholars. Yet while it is uncommon enough to find Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson sharing the same album, the conductor Robert Trevino has taken his exploration still further, into the recesses of their repertory – complete with a Hanson piece, Before the Dawn, that has had to wait a century for this, its premiere recording. Robert Trevino’s debut album with the Basque National Orchestra on Ondine featured orchestral works by Maurice Ravel and has received excellent reviews in music media around the world.

'Panorama of American Piano Music' is a comprehensive survey of 20th century piano works, beginning with Ives’ “The Alcotts” movement from the 'Concord Sonata' (1912) through Lou Harrison’s 'Summerfield Set' (1988). Every decade is represented with works from between those years. Pianist Yvar Mikhashoff (1941–93) was a master at presenting marathon concerts on a single theme. The 'Panorama' was one of them, exploring the remarkable diversity of 20th century American music, from serialism to minimalism, populist to avant garde experimentalism, short works for amateur pianists to virtuoso pieces. Never before has such a survey of piano music been represented.

John J. Becker - Soundpieces 1-7 (2020) {2CD Set, New World Records Digital Issue}
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© 2020 New World Records
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Ultramodern

John J. Becker (1886-1961) is the least known of a group of composers who, by reputation, became known as "the American Five," analogous to the better-known "Russian Five" or "French Six." Becker's cohorts consisted of Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger, and Charles Ives. Ives, born 1874, was the oldest of the group and Cowell, born 1897, was the youngest, and in the 1920s and '30s they were known as the most radical and dissonant of American composers.

Larry Polansky - Simple Harmonic Motion (1994) {Artifact Recordings ART 1011}
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© 1994 Artifact Recordings | ART 1011
Classical / Jazz / Contemporary Classical / Experimental / Process-Generated

This CD presents four exquisite works for instruments in just intonation. Another You (1981), for solo harp in just intonation, is a set of 17 variations on a jazz standard that appears only briefly within the piece. The music, excellently realized by Alyssa Hess Reit, is delicate, spare, and filled with quiet emotion. The harp is played as if it were a large folk harp, thus, no pedals are used. Movement for Andréa Smith (My Funny Valentine for just string quartet) (1978), played by two violins and two violas using only the airy texture of natural harmonics, again varies a jazz standard.