Stephen Eddins writes (at AllMusic.com), "Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, who for much of his career worked under the constraints of the Soviet system, sees composition as a political act and hopes that his music might be a vehicle for national healing. He has written, 'I have always dreamed that my music would be heard in the places where unhappy people are gathered.' Much of Vasks' work is soulfully meditative, as are most of the movements of his string quartets. Many have the mournful tone and the static sense of time being suspended that is characteristic of the Eastern European mysticism of composers like Pärt and Górecki. The feeling of time being displaced or being cyclical is most striking in the first movement of the Second Quartet, which begins almost exactly like the last movement of the Third Quartet (1995), with a distinctive, hushed, almost pitchless murmuring in the upper strings." Watch a performance of the last movement of Vasks' String Quartet No. 3 performed by the Navarra String Quartet . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The film world recently morned the loss of one of its greatest composers, John Barry, who died of a heart attack on January 30, 2011, at his home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. As Jon Burlingame of FilmMusicSociety.com put it, "John Barry was one of a kind. He invented a new style of action-adventure music for the movies — that much is certain — but he was equally adept at quiet dramas, historical epics and contemporary thrillers. And what's more, he could write music appropriate to all of these kinds of movies and still sound like nobody else. Barry's death marks the passing of an era. Yes, some of our musical icons from the 1960s, '70s and '80s are still around, still writing, still conducting... but the loss of John Barry is keenly felt simply because there was no one quite like him." Some of his most famous film scores include From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Born Free, and Dances With Wolves. Watch the opening of another John Barry classic, Out of Africa (1985), which stars Meryl Streep and Robert Redford . . . this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Composer Michael Colgrass' Winds of Nagual for wind ensemble draws its programmatic inspiration from the writings of Carlos Castaneda who has become somewhat of a cult icon. Castaneda's writings center on his work for fourteen years in Mesoamerican shamanism with Don Juan Matus. According to the composer, "[Although] the score is laced with programmatic indications, the listener need not have read Castaneda's books to enjoy the work, and I don't expect anyone to follow any exact scenario. My object is to capture the mood and atmosphere created by the books and to convey a feeling of the relationship that develops as a man of ancient wisdom tries to cultivate heart in an analytical young man of the technological age." Hear a performance of the first section of Winds of Nagual (1985), entitled The Desert . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

Shulamit Ran, winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize in composition, has been awarded most major honors given to composers in the U.S., including two fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, grants and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters, first prize in the Kennedy Center-Friedheim Awards competition for orchestral music, and many more. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Ran has never forgotten that a vital essence of composition is communication." This sort of reaction is by no means unusual. Around the country, from Seattle to Baltimore to Houston, commentary on her music typically runs thus: "gloriously human," and "compelling not only for its white-hot emotional content but for its intelligence and compositional clarity; Ran is a magnificent composer." Watch a performance of the second movement of Ran's Sonatina for 2 Flutes (1961) by the Blithe Duo . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music