Three Pieces

Victor Herbert, Irish by birth, moved to Germany when he was eight and came to America when both he and his wife landed gigs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. Operetta was plainly his strength, and his works in that medium remain his best known. But he soaked up enough of the German tradition (in 1883 he played in a tribute concert to Liszt, with Brahms of all people conducting) to want to write serious music, and he notched several major disasters in that field. That in turn has led to neglect of smaller works like the ones on this album, which contains several gems.

Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt have both called the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov "one of the greatest composers of our time”. He is also one of its true originals; though a leading figure in the former Soviet Union’s avant-garde in the 1960s, he subsequently came to realise that "the most important lesson of the avant-garde was to be free of all preconceived ideas – particularly those of the avant-garde." Silvestrov was born in Kiev in 1937 and studied the piano at Kiev Evening Music School, then composition, harmony and counterpoint at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. His early experimental orientation meant that his work received official criticism in the Soviet Union and, despite prizes and some prominent champions, recognition in his homeland and beyond was hard won. Over time, Silvestrov’s compositional practice evolved into what he would come to call his “metaphorical style” or “meta-music.” The composer wishes his works to be seen as “codas” to musical history because “fewer and fewer texts are possible which… begin at the beginning”. He has declared that “I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.”

The Morton Feldman Piano box set is the most extensive survey of Feldman’ s piano music to date. Released exactly 20 years after John Tilbury’ s long unavailable 4-CD set, the new box includes several pieces which weren’ t included there, and has three works which have never been released on disc before. Philip Thomas has been playing Feldman’ s music for 25 years and is one of the foremost interpreters of his work with an extraordinary gentle touch. He and John Tilbury combined forces to produce the highly acclaimed Two Pianos double CD, which featured Feldman’ s music for multiple pianos.

… one of the great names in classical music, whose mere name was enough to sell out houses worldwide. ~Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide