New Music - Piano Compositions By Henry Cowell / Brown, Hays, Kubera, Cahill

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
When you hear the methodical full-body slams (or so they seem) delivered by pianist Chris Brown on Henry Cowell's Dynamic Motion, it amazes that the composer scripted the piece in 1914. Exactly when the world was hitting its modern stride, when speed was vital, Cowell was plunging listeners into the most dense piano music ever composed, even using the term cluster to describe how the piano ought to be played in his works. This collection of 26 Cowell pieces focuses on the easily contained modern era, all of it composed before 1930 and most before 1925. Don't let that mislead you, though; these are some of American music's most maverick moments, times when Cowell made himself perfectly clear in declaring a new language for the keyboard. The pieces, while resolutely American in their declarative, independent character, are also painfully lovely, each suggesting (and many making abundantly clear) the profusion of tonal and atonal possibilities in different clusters. The performers are an adventurous lot, with Brown and Joseph Kubera the best known. But Sorrel Hays and Sarah Cahill do equally tremendous things with these works, exploding them for their full interpretive potential (as Cowell would want). This is one of the great piano-music releases of the 1990s, intrepid and sonically outstanding. --Andrew Bartlett

Tracks:

Dynamic Motion (1914)
What's This? (1914)
Amiable Conversation (1917)
Advertisement (1914)
Antimony (1914)
Timetable
The Banshee (c. 1925)
Exultation (1919)
Tides Of Manaunaun (c. 1912)
Aeolian Harp (1923)
Hero Sun
Fabric (1917)
Lilt of the Reel (1925)
Nine Ings (1922) - Floating
Nine Ings - Frisking
Nine Ings - Fleeting
Nine Ings - Scooting
Nine Ings - Wafting
Nine Ings - Seething
Nine Ings - Whisking
Nine Ings - Sneaking
Nine Ings - Swaying
Slow Jig (1925)
The Fairy Answer (1929)
Set of Two Movements - Deep Color
Set of Two Movements - High Color

Amazon.com

When you hear the methodical full-body slams (or so they seem) delivered by pianist Chris Brown on Henry Cowell's Dynamic Motion, it amazes that the composer scripted the piece in 1914. Exactly when the world was hitting its modern stride, when speed was vital, Cowell was plunging listeners into the most dense piano music ever composed, even using the term cluster to describe how the piano ought to be played in his works. This collection of 26 Cowell pieces focuses on the easily contained modern era, all of it composed before 1930 and most before 1925. Don't let that mislead you, though; these are some of American music's most maverick moments, times when Cowell made himself perfectly clear in declaring a new language for the keyboard. The pieces, while resolutely American in their declarative, independent character, are also painfully lovely, each suggesting (and many making abundantly clear) the profusion of tonal and atonal possibilities in different clusters. The performers are an adventurous lot, with Brown and Joseph Kubera the best known. But Sorrel Hays and Sarah Cahill do equally tremendous things with these works, exploding them for their full interpretive potential (as Cowell would want). This is one of the great piano-music releases of the 1990s, intrepid and sonically outstanding. --Andrew Bartlett

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

Track Listings

Hold On

Masters of the Keyboard: The Next Generation, Vol. 2

Mumtaz Mahal

Farmer's Reserve

Sideways [Import]

Money Mackin' & Murder [Explicit Lyrics]

Neil Sedaka - Greatest Hits [Germany 1990] [Import]

Prokofiev: Symphony 2/Summer Night/Autumn Sketch

Nedra

Jazz For A Sensual Night

Out of the Vein [Limited Edition w/ Bonus DVD]

Llego Bomba

Los Tres Grandes del Rock, Vol. 2

Dvorak: Very Best Of

The Ultimate Swing Wedding