Duo Biao 2008

Safri Duo - Origins (2008)
Drum & Bass | 1 CD | MP3 VBR 224 Kbps | 60 MB
Publisher: Universal Music Intl. | Language: English

This creation from the stables of Safri Duo marks a change from their usual genre of music. Still featuring a liberal dose of percussion instruments, the album features extensive use of lush strings, piano and ethnic vocals.

The pianist, composer, producer and renaissance musician Jeroen van Veen has played many concerts with both his wife Sandra and his brother Maarten, and has recorded with both of them for Brilliant Classics. The present compilation brings together a unique sequence of masterpieces for the genre in live and studio performances, made between 1992 and 2008, and given by the brothers as Piano Duo Van Veen.

Mari Mäntylä is one of the most appreciated classical guitarist in Finland. Her main instrument is decacorde, the 10-string classical guitar.

The initial impetus of the ‘Australian Thais’ project came from David Howie’s Thai family connections and the shared interest to explore the connections between the music and people of both countries. This led to collaborations with some of Thailand and Australia’s premiere composers to commission, workshop and produce new music for a cross-cultural exchange aimed at enhancing and strengthening links between the two countries, greatly increasing cultural awareness and understanding through music. This project was made possible by a Sydney University, Conservatorium of Music internal research grant.

This four disc set from Erato opens with Gluck’s three act lyric tragedy Iphigénie en Aulide, his first original ‘French’ opera for the fashionable Paris Opéra. In 1773 Gluck had been persuaded that he could establish himself at the Paris Opéra (also known as L’Opéra) by François du Roullet, an attaché at the French Embassy in Vienna. Baille du Roullet provided Gluck with the libretto for Iphigénie en Aulide, based on the tragedy of Racine and founded on the play of Euripides. Initially the Director of L’Opéra hesitated in accepting Gluck’s score. Fortunately he had a influential ally in Marie-Antoinette, the Queen of France, to whom he had taught singing and harpsichord. The first staging of Iphigénie en Aulide was at the Paris Opéra in 1774.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations is a contrapuntal tour de force, and one of the pinnacles in the history of the variation genre. Composed ‘to refresh the spirits of music-lovers’, it is a constantly fascinating and deeply enriching evocation of an entire musical universe. This arrangement with two ten-string guitars is a transcription of the original text including later corrections and additional musical indications made by the composer. The additional bass strings of these instruments provide an entire lower octave, giving access to the full range of musical timbres in this eternal masterpiece.

Joachim Kaczkowski, a Polish violinist, teacher and composer, was born in 1789 in the city of Tábor in southern Bohemia. He came from a family with strong musical traditions. Joachim Kaczkowski took his first violin lessons from his father. He grew up in Lviv at a time when such outstanding representatives of the musical community as Polish conductor and composer of German origin Józef Elsner and violinist, conductor and composer Karol Kurpinski were active there. The form of violin duo has never gained great popularity and attention among composers of chamber music throughout the musical eras. Due to the relatively limited sound range of the violin, this kind of works, on the one hand, severely hampered the artistic potential of composers, and on the other hand, unlike the much more popular string quartets, it did not arouse much interest among a wider audience. Therefore, Joachim Kaczkowski, an excellent violin virtuoso, had a great opportunity to experiment with a rarely exploited musical form, which resulted in numerous innovative and often surprising textural and sound effects.