Talking about his work The Horse with the Lavender Eye (1997), composer Stephen Hartke writes, "I've always been fascinated by non-sequiturs, and the way that sense can suddenly appear out of nonsense. I also find imagery derived from words and pictures to be a great stimulus to my musical thinking, even if the relationships between the images I seize upon are not necessarily obvious or logical. The sources for the titles of this trio are quite disparate [Music of the Left; The Servant of Two Masters; Waltzing at the Abyss; Cancel My Rumba Lesson], ranging from Carlo Goldoni to Japanese court music to the cartoonist R. Crumb, as well as 19th century Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis and Looney Tunes. A bewildering array of references, to be sure, but one that somehow whets my musical appetite." Watch a performance of Stephen Hartke's The Horse with the Lavender Eye, played by clarinetist Jerome Simas, violinist Anna Presler, and pianist Eric Zivian . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Parthenia, hailed by The New Yorker as "one of the brightest lights in New York's early-music scene," is a quartet of viols dedicated to the performance of ancient and contemporary repertoires. Parthenia has presented concerts across America, produced its own concert series in New York City, collaborates regularly with the world's foremost early music artists and ensembles, and has been featured on radio and television as well as festivals and series as wide-ranging as Music Before 1800, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Columbia University's Miller Theatre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Yale Center for British Art, the Harriman-Jewell Series in Kansas City, and the Tage Alter Musik Festival in Regensburg, Germany. Parthenia's unique variety of performances range from its popular touring program, "When Music & Sweet Poetry Agree", a celebration of Elizabethan poetry and music with actor Paul Hecht and mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek of Anonymous 4, to the complete viol fantasies of Henry Purcell and complete instrumental works of Robert Parsons, as well as commissions and premieres of many new works by composers such as Phil Kline, Richard Einhorn, Brian Fennelly, Will Ayton, Max Lifchitz, Kristin Norderval, David Glaser, and Frances White. Read more about Parthenia and the new music they have commissioned . . . they're our FEATURED ENSEMBLE, and the subject of our FEATURED THOUGHTS & IDEAS.

Hailed as a "virtuoso" by the New York Times, "unique sound" by the Daily Star, and "engagingly flamboyant" by the L.A. Times, clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh is one of Syria's rising stars. His utterly distinctive sound is now fast gaining international recognition. Born in Damascus, Azmeh is a graduate of New York's Juilliard school, and the first Arab to win the premier prize at the 1997 Nicolai Rubinstein International Competition, Moscow. A Sad Morning, Every Morning (2012), Azmeh's collaboration with visual artist, Kevork Mourad is "a little prayer for home. Dedicated to all those who have fallen in Syria in the past year." Listen to Kinan Azmeh's perform his A Sad Morning, Every Morning, with visuals by Kevork Mourad . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

American composer George Tsontakis composed the movements of his Four Symphonic Quartets as follows: Other Echoes (1996), Perpetual Angelus (1992), The Dove Descending (1995), and Winter Lightning (1993). The title of each is based on one of the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot, but not in the order of his cycle of meditative poems. Tsontakis does not attempt to set Eliot to music, either impressionistically or programmatically. In fact, he says he scarcely consulted the poems while writing his pieces. Instead, he sought to create aural landscapes that were somehow Eliotic in expanse and depth. This is much the same relationship as between Eliot's poems and the late Beethoven String Quartets, from which the poet sought to create in language a depth of meditative introspection and breadth comparable to the composer of the previous century. Whatever one may think of Eliot's craving for spiritual absolutes and his sometimes slippery mysticism, The Four Quartets are one of the most aurally sonorous and reverberant works of 20th century poetry in the English language. And any reader who has read them with absorption aloud must have found their rhythms and phrases impressed on the aural memory indelibly. The third Quartet, The Dove Descending, concerns potentiality in reserve - conservation and expectation. This is why Tsontakis says that even though it is the gentlest and most consoling movement it also hides a kind of terror. How it is able to hold potentiality together for such length without collapsing into exhaustion or erupting into climax is the mystery the ear revisits with each re-hearing [notes thanks to Don Mager/Making Time]. Listen to a performance of George Tsontakis' The Dove Descending (1995) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

"Across his diverse and successful career, Jacques Ibert kept his distance from the many "isms" of the twentieth century, insisting that "all systems are valid, provided one derives music from them." His Flute Concerto, written for Marcel Moyse and premiered in 1934, is one of the classics of its genre, and in it Ibert demonstrates that his idea of "music" is not as easily "derived" as he seems to suggest. The work is a masterful blend of the new and old, exploring the full range of flute technique without indulging in virtuosity for its own sake. Ibert also takes advantage of new compositional possibilities and his exquisite sense for orchestral color, but, again, without indulging in excess, exercising a typically French restraint within delicately balanced forms and textures. Throughout, Ibert creates a nuanced balance between orchestral and virtuosic brilliance." [Raymond Knapp/Santa Monica Symphony] Watch a performance of the final movement of Ibert's Flute Concerto (1934) performed by flutist Jiro Yoshioka . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

According to clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh, "The current unrest in the seat of the world’s oldest civilization inspired us to explore the most ancient epic we have in writing today. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a lush story, rich in meaning, in romance, and in humor. Visual artist Kevork Mourad and I have chosen to explore this epic through the art forms of music and painting, using them in tandem as vehicles for story telling. With original composition on the clarinet, (with the use of Max/Msp software as a compositional extension,) inspiring and working off the visual artist’s projected illustration, the world’s oldest known epic will be brought to life in the present: through new musical forms and means, and through a new form of visual art exploring the permanence of lines on paper in the impermanence of projection". Watch an excerpt from The Gilgamesh Project (2006) . . . the second one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

This week the music of Marilyn Shrude, William Albright and Burton Beerman is presented in our FEATURED RECORDING Shadows and Dawning (Albany Records 526). Fanfare Magazine writes, "The disc turns out to be a quite a winner ... with the Beerman work followed by two saxophone pieces by Marilyn Shrude. Her Shadows and Dawning (1982) for saxophone and piano is a one-movement chamber poem depicting the gradual transformation of nature's darkness into light - nighttime to dawning. Moods of mystery and modernistic performance techniques are used: multiphonics, timbral trills, and the like. Eventually the piano begins passagework reminiscent of shimmering - the first traces of light are apparent; the saxophone trills excitedly and the picture is complete". Read more about this disc and hear excerpts from it . . . it's this week's FEATURED RECORDING.

Maurice Ravel saw his Piano Concerto in G (1931) as being in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns, light and brilliant, in contrast to those heavier classical concerti which he felt were written "against" rather than "for" the piano. Ravel wrote, "The music of a concerto, in my opinion, should be light and bright and does not seek depth or dramatic effects". Watch a beautiful performance of the first movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G performed by pianist Martha Argerich . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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