Horatiu Radulescu: Piano Concerto "The Quest"
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Once an eminently youthful and radical composer, Horatiu Radulescu was first acclaimed--or decried--as the founder of "spectral music," which sounded to the world like a mélange of microtonality and a variety of timbrally oriented techniques. With his piano concerto The Quest, Radulescu has modified his spectral approach, using the first movement as a kind of large-scale sonata that consists of precious few themes taken at an intensely slow tempo with string glissandi weaving the interthematic distances together. The motion is akin to Morton Feldman's late-period works in its slowness and refusal to "develop" in the strictest sense of the term. The second movement is bombastic and dense, with collisions of sonorous elements occurring over pianist Ortwin Stürmer as he storms his Bösendorfer's low end. In the third and fourth movements, the music swirls into heterophonic complexity, based first on Romanian carols that Radulescu borrows from Bartók's early-century collection and then on timpani-driven cacophony as the concerto opens wide to end in blasting energy. --Andrew Bartlett
Horatiu Radulescu: Piano Concerto "The Quest", Music, Horatiu Radulescu, Lothar Zagrosek, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ortwin Stumer, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Keyboard, Orchestral & Symphonic
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Horatiu Radulescu: Piano Concerto "The Quest"
Manufacturer: Cpo Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD  General
| Symphonies
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Classical
| Styles
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ASIN: B00000DHSP Release Date: 1998-10-27 |
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Amazon.com
Once an eminently youthful and radical composer, Horatiu Radulescu was first acclaimed--or decried--as the founder of "spectral music," which sounded to the world like a mélange of microtonality and a variety of timbrally oriented techniques. With his piano concerto The Quest, Radulescu has modified his spectral approach, using the first movement as a kind of large-scale sonata that consists of precious few themes taken at an intensely slow tempo with string glissandi weaving the interthematic distances together. The motion is akin to Morton Feldman's late-period works in its slowness and refusal to "develop" in the strictest sense of the term. The second movement is bombastic and dense, with collisions of sonorous elements occurring over pianist Ortwin Stürmer as he storms his Bösendorfer's low end. In the third and fourth movements, the music swirls into heterophonic complexity, based first on Romanian carols that Radulescu borrows from Bartók's early-century collection and then on timpani-driven cacophony as the concerto opens wide to end in blasting energy. --Andrew BartlettCustomer Reviews:
A major new piano concerto.......2003-12-18
The concerto opens with a lengthy (22 minutes) moderato movement in modified sonata form. This takes two rhythmically complex themes (one that rises up the keyboard and slows down as it does so; the other a Romanian Christmas carol) and develops and combines them. Radulescu's spectralist inheritance is clear here--as it is in the whole of the concerto--in the strange, unearthly, sometimes microtonal harmonies that surround the primarily diatonic melodic material in a haze of interference colours, as well as the glacial slowness with which the material develops.
The second movement also develops slowly; the main material being a piano recitative which the orchestra garlands in a variety of shimmering colours. The recitative gradually intensifies as the movement progresses, and the orchestra responds likewise.
In the third movement, the music suddenly speeds up rapidly: this movement is a joyous collage of eighteen different Romanian Christmas carols (many of which will be familar to listeners of Bartók's transcriptions). The music swings from one carol to another without warning, alternating between different rhythmic patterns with swift changes of perspective, before concluding with a brassy fanfare.
The finale returns to the musical material of the first movement, but in a more dynamic context, underlaid by a constant--if irregular--beating from the timpani. The music is repetitive and intensifies as it reiterates itself until it reaches a vigorous climax.
This is, in my opinion, an outstanding work and one of the finest of post-war piano concerti. Ortwin Stürmer is an outstanding soloist (he should be; the work was written for him) and the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchestra Frankfurt support him excellently under the experienced baton of Lothar Zagrosek. This recording deserves the widest possible currency, as it is a work both surprisingly accessible and long-lasting in its effect. Highly recommended.
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