Meditative Music

Norwegian folk musician Sinikka Langeland, singer and player of the kantele (the Finnish table harp) is a distinctly non-traditional traditionalist, redefining "folk" in successive projects. 'Maria's Song' finds her in the company of two distinguished classical musicians - organist Kare Nordstoga and "giant of the Nordic viola" Lars Anders Tomter - and on a mission to restore Marian texts to sacred music, weaving folk melodies in between the timeless strains of J S Bach. Langeland made a lot of friends with her sparkling ECM debut Starflowers: "There are jewels everywhere on this arresting example of ego-free music-making. One of the albums of this or any other year" raved the Irish Times. Where Starflowers brought Langeland into the orbit of jazz improvisers, Maria's Song is a meeting and cross referencing of folk and 'classical' energies, and also a righting of historical 'injustice': Religious folk songs are amongst the most distinctive elements of the Norwegian folk tradition, yet the Virgin Mary rarely appears in them.

This very appealing disc of post-minimal solo piano music, played by Bruce Brubaker, includes two multi-movements works by William Duckworth and Philip Glass. Composer and music critic Kyle Gann describes Duckworth's The Time Curve Preludes (1977-1978), which use repetitive structures, an essentially tonal harmonic language, and a limited amount of musical material, as the first examples of post-minimal music, because of their brevity, which runs counter to the element of minimalism in which musical changes unfold very slowly over a long time span. The preludes are in two books of 12 movements each, and Brubaker plays the first book. Although they rarely involve exact repetition, each prelude takes a musical idea and examines it from a variety of subtly shifting perspectives. The preludes generally have limited harmonic movement and are frequently built on drones, so they tend to create a sense of stasis and equilibrium, sometimes quietly meditative and sometimes busy. Duckworth's quirky hallmark mixture of major and minor modes is evident in many of the preludes. The harmonic movement and gestures of Glass' Six Etudes for Piano, from 1994, make the pieces immediately recognizable as his work.

Walter Wolff, who was born in Finland, made a big career as a jazz pianist in Holland, where he studied, and elsewhere in Europe. In 2012 Walter Wolff finished his jazz pianist career and moved on to compose classical music. The present album consists of a variety of chamber music composed by Wolff, from a solo viola work to a piano trio. Wolff combines the rhythms of jazz and an improvisational atmosphere with classical music in a stylish way.

"Featured here is the world premiere recording of Carl Vine's Piano Sonata No. 4, a work written for me in June 2019! All of the pieces in this album showcase the extraordinary capabilities of the piano, from virtuosic "fireworks" to poignant melodies. Vine's style is unique in the way he uses the full range of the keyboard, exploring a wide array of colors, effects, and sonorities. This is some of the most brilliant piano writing of today's classical catalogue!"