Geoffrey Gordon Composer: Recent Episodes
Geoffrey Gordon
US/UK composer Geoffrey Gordon’s contributions to the contemporary music repertoire have been and continue to be exceptional. Intense and luxuriant harmony, passionate melody and superb handling of instrumentation and sonic textures define his music. His works include orchestral, chamber and vocal works, recognised and performed by the world's top musicians and ensembles. His music has been called "darkly seductive" (The New York Times), "complex, richly-satisfying " (BBC Music Magazine), “stunning” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “iridescent and glowing” (Chicago Tribune), “taut and exhilarating” (Classical Ear), “haunting” (Strings Magazine), "gripping" (Bachtrack), "fierce and uncompromising" (MusicWeb International) and “magnificent” (Fanfare). The Philharmonia identifies “his infectious style" and “an ear for melody”; the New York Times his “zest for sonic experimentation”.
Recently and upcoming, the BBC Philharmonic will premiere Mr. Gordon's new bassoon concerto, Anima Mia, during the 2022-23 concert season; the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Hong Kong Sinfonietta will premiere a jointly commissioned chamber concerto for Bb clarinet and ensemble, Fumee; and the Antwerp Symphony will premiere Mr. Gordon's Mad Song, which they commissioned for soloist Dimitri Mestdag.
In 2018, the Philharmonia gave the premiere of Geoffrey’s Gordon’s bass clarinet concerto “Prometheus” after the treatment by Franz Kafka, at the RFH, with US and Nordic premieres following in 2019 with the Minnesota Orchestra and Malmo Symphony. His superb setting of Keats' “Ode to a Nightingale” for choir and cello premiered in May 2018 in Copenhagen by Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir and a new CD of three of his major cello works, Cello Libris, was released on the BIS label in early 2020, featuring the Copenhagen Philharmonic under Lan Shui. His song cycles, “Peter Quince at the Clavier” and “Sonnets from Neruda” premiered in March 2018 at the Arnold Schoenberg Center, Vienna, and in October 2017 the Munich Philharmonic under James Gaffigan premiered his trumpet concerto, "CHASE," after the sculptures of Giacometti. His cello sonata “FATHOMS” premiered at Carnegie Hall in December 2015 and his “Winterleben” for horn, mezzo and piano (commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain), premiered in August 2015 as part of the 47th International Horn Symposium in Los Angeles. Honoured by a number of residencies internationally, he has twice served as composer-in-residence at the Aaron Copland House and is winner of 2017 Mario Merz Prize for Music Composition. In 2018, he was commissioned by the Curie Institute in Paris, part of the Muse-IC project. A new chamber work, featuring musicians from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, premiered at the Salle Cortot Theatre in Paris in March, 2019.
Future performances and commissions include new works for the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the Brussels Philharmonic and many others.
Find more links to Geoffrey Gordon's music, as well as bio and reviews etc. at www.geoffreygordoncomposer.com
NEW CD, Cello Libris, out on BIS Records! Find it here: https://bis.se/performers/moldrup-toke/cello-libris-works-by-geoffrey-gordon
This is the live performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Crucifixus for double choir and solo cello, from the Presteigne Festival, Wales, UK - featuring the Choir of Royal Holloway, conductor Rupert Gough and cellist Alice Neary, within the confines of the 13th century Anglican Priory Church in Leominster, Herefordshire, England, 25 August 2024.TEXT:Crucifixus etiam pro nobissub Pontio Pilato,passus et sepultus est.Et resurrexit tertia diesecundum Scripturas.Et ascendit in coelum:sedet ad dexteram Patris.Et iterum venturus est cum gloria,judicare vivos et mortuos:cujus regni non erit finis.(English translation):He was crucified also for usunder Pontius Pilate;He suffered and was buried.And the third dayAccording to the Scriptures.He ascended into heaven:He sits at the right hand of the Father.He will come again with glory,to judge the living and the dead;His kingdom will have no end.www.geoffreygordoncomposer.com
This is the Asian premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's Fumée for Bb clarinet and chamber orchestra, with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, conductor Christoph Poppen and soloist Horácio Ferreira, from HK City Hall Concert Hall, Hong Kong, 29 June 2024.PROGRAM NOTE:Immersed in the magical cultural milieu of Belle Époque Paris at the end of the 19th century, the precocious talent of young composer Reynaldo Hahn (August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947) emerged, and from an early age, Hahn astounded and delighted his audiences with settings of some of the most beautiful and enduring poems of contemporary writers, including Hugo, Verlaine, Mallarmé. It is said that Verlaine "wept to hear Hahn's songs" and Mallarmé wrote: "Le pleur qui chante au langage du poète, Reynaldo Hahn, tendrement le dégage comme en l'allée un jet d'eau." (“The cry that sings to the language of the poet, Reynaldo Hahn, tenderly releases it like a jet of water in the alley.”)Inspired by and in recognition of Hahn’s legacy, composer Geoffrey Gordon re-imagines, through his own distinct and intensely expressive musical language, the beguiling atmosphere, adventurous harmonic progressions and profound beauty of Hahn’s exquisite and contemplative chanson, “Fumée” (“Smoke”) – first published by Paris Heugel (1896) - in the form of an alluring and intense new concerto for Bb clarinet and chamber orchestra. Echoing and amplifying Hahn’s setting of the text by Jean Moréas, the concerto idiomatically addresses the poet’s message of a life that goes from ashes to ashes, envying the freedom and transience of smoke which has no past, no responsibility, and is without the hardships of life....vanishing into the ether.
This is a the premiere performance of Exposure for solo violin, by composer Geoffrey Gordon, featuring soloist Elisabeth Kufferath for whom the work was commissioned by the Freundeskreises Hauskonzert Musik für heute e.V.,as part of Musik 21 Lower Saxony. The premiere performance took place at the Calder Saal at the Sprengel Art Museum, Hannover, Germany – 14 November 2021. PROGRAM NOTE:Inspired by the TRUE PICTURES art installation, comprised of contemporary North American Photography of the 21st century at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover Germany, Exposure for solo violin responds, sonically, to the powerful artistic visual language of this medium. The contrast of lyrical and explosive, of light and dark, of smooth and abrasive are expressed in sound via the wood and sinew of the solo violin, whose expressive capabilities are explored through both traditional and extended techniques. Exposure, as a term and a title, refers not only to the obvious photographic reference – the amount of light reaching a frame of photographic film or the surface of an electronic image sensor (as determined by shutter speed, lens aperture, and scene luminance), but also to the exposure of thoughts and ideas and concepts which comes of this process, and the way in which, through music, these images can be converted into sound.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the studio recording of Geoffrey Gordon's orchestral work, Nescientis Animi, after the math of Gottfried Leibniz, recorded in Glasgow, featuring the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with conductor Martyn Brabbins from sessions 4 October 2022."musica is exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis is numerare animi "-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz“Music is the veiled arithmetical practice of the spirit (who knows not, that it is counting).”- From Gottfried Leibniz’ letter to Christian Goldbach of 17 April 1712, Opera omnia Volume III, Dutens, Geneva, 1768.Program note:While the writings of the great German mathematician and philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 1716), on music and music theory are few (mainly found in simple allusions within philosophical texts or within correspondence letters), the presiding themes of his discourse on the subject speak with an unquestionable and fascinating resonance of the relationship between harmony and dissonance, arithmetic and music. In his letter written in Latin to Christian Goldbach of 17 April 1712 (Opera omnia Volume III, Dutens, Geneva, 1768), Leibniz famously assimilates music to an unconscious arithmetic and asserts that music is essentially the effect and pleasure which the mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting and that music is essentially governed by arithmetic. In the letter to Goldbach, Leibniz considers the relations between the prime numbers, the limitation of our counting to 5, sometimes 7 (heralding a new kind of music) and beyond, the coincidences which produce consonance and the success of random irrational ratios which produce dissonance. The complexity of Leibniz’s analysis seems indefatigable and yet his letter touches on a matter special to music - a truth about music, and thereby an irony, on which Leibniz would not mathematically theorize: the power of music to move the spirit.“Nescientis animi” draws its title from the Latin text (literally meaning “unconscious mind”) of Leibniz’ letter to Goldbach of 17 April 1712, and is a sonic discovery in orchestral setting of Leibniz’ considerations and analyses of the relationship between harmony and dissonance, arithmetic and music. The work is in one movement for orchestra with a duration of approximately 15 minutes. Within a clear architectural structure, the music unfolds around a series of specific triadic formations which are placed against more free flowing, abstract passages; allusion to number structures based on 1, 3, 5 and then 7 and on higher (though not necessarily as basic triads); intervals of 3rds juxtaposed against 4ths, questioning and experimenting to prioritize 3 as perfect over 4 as imperfect, scrunched by a rich, dark and intense handling of dissonance - compelling bodily the feel and sound of the paradox … the exquisite emotion which dissonance and consonance share. The music drives inexorably towards the final section where earlier glimpses of melody reveal a literal musical allusion to the well known JH Gallus motet, “Ecce, quomodo moritur iustus” - a funeral song to which Leibniz refers in one of his letters, expressing his realization that sometimes something quite inexplicable occurs upon hearing music which moves the listener in an extraordinary, sensory and emotional way (quite apart from a mathematical or analytical point of view). The Gallus reference compels us to consider the extraordinary effect of the motet upon Leibniz, in the context of otherwise contemporary musical language – reaching both backward and forward as it dominates in the closing moments of this work.PRODUCER: Alex Van IngenTHIS IS A PRIVATE RECORDING AND MAY NOT BE SHARED WITHOUT PERMISSION.
This is the studio recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's orchestral work, PUCK - fleeing from the dawn, featured on the new Orchid Classics CD, Mythologies and Mad Songs - which is inspired by the work of Scottish artist, David Scott (1837). The recording was made in Glasgow, 3-4 October 2022, with producer Alex Van Ingen.*****In the last scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the magical fairy Puck comes into the palace of Theseus after all the mortals have retired for the night. He says,And we fairies, that do runBy the triple Hecate's team,From the presence of the sun,Following darkness like a dream,Now are frolic.Oberon, Titania and their band of fairies then enter, "Hand in hand, with fairy grace" to "sing, and bless this place." Their work, Oberon says, must be finished by break of day. Scott's work depicts a scene that does not occur until the play is over and all the supernatural creatures have left the palace. It is this imagined scene which inspires the music for this tone poem.
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.
This is the studio recording of Geoffrey Gordon's Vermilion for tenor trombone and piano, after the painting by Matisse, featuring trombone soloist Håkan Björkman (Principal trombone, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe) and pianist Pilar Beltran. Recorded 11 September, Royal College of Music, Stockholm, Sweden - Sound engineer: Jan-Olof Gullö, RCM.PROGRAM NOTE:"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish" said renowned French artist, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), whose predilection for exploring and using colour and composition in unique and vibrantways fills his paintings with bold colours and techniques associated with the Fauvist Art movement. The thoughts of the painter Paul Gauguin were known to Matisse: writing about art and color, Gauguin said “How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion”. To his students, Matisse spoke not of red or orange, but vermilion. From around 1912, goldfish, which had been introduced to Europe from East Asia in 17th century, became a recurring subject in the work of Matisse. They appear in no less than nine of his paintings, as well as in his drawings and prints. For Matisse, the goldfish came to symbolize a tranquil state of mind and a lost paradise. Visiting Tangier, Matisse had been intrigued to see how people would daydream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls. In his paintings, the goldfish immediately attract attention, due to their colour: vermilion. The bright red-orange, so evident and seemingly bursting with its components of red and yellow fused in a dense complicated colour, contrasts strongly to surrounding blues and greens, each made brighter by the presence of the other.
This is an excerpt of the first movement of Geoffrey Gordon's Creavit Deus Hominem, for oboe and orchestra, from the world premiere performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor Duncan Ward and soloist José Luis García Vegara, for whom the orchestra commissioned the new work, which is inspired by the Synchromism art movement of the early 20th c. Performance: Hr-Sendesaal, Frankfurt, Germany...2 June 2023.
This is the live premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's la terre est bleue comme une orange No. 2 (the earth is blue like and orange) - a work for string quartet inspired by French surrealist poet Paul Eluard's iconic poem.
This work was commissioned by the San Francisco-based Friction Quartet and took place on 23 and 24 September 2022 at Noe Valley Ministry and Ruth Bancroft Garden in San Francisco.
The earth Is blue like an orange
No error the words do not lie They no longer allow you to sing In the tower of kisses agreement The madness the love She her mouth of alliance All the secrets all the smiles Or what dress of indulgence To believe in quite naked. The wasps flourish greenly Dawn goes by round her neck A necklace of windows You are all the solar joys All the sun of this earth On the roads of your beauty.
- Paul Eluard (translated from the French)
This is a performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Quintettsatz (drawn from his QUINTET for clarinet and strings) given by Ensemble De Sono Futura, Turin, Italy - 8 March 2017.
This is the world premiere performance of the two trumpet version of Geoffrey Gordon's He Saith Among the Trumpets, with Paul Merkelo, solo trumpet, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Stéphane Beaulac, principal trumpet, Orchestre Métropolitain - with percussionist Josh Wynnyk - recorded at Maison Symphonique, Montréal Quebec, 22 April 2021.
This work, originally for solo trumpet in C, was commissioned on behalf of soloist Simon Höfele, who gave the premiere performance at Wigmore Hall, London, England – 22 September 2020.
"He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." (Job 39:25)
He saith among the trumpets draws inspiration and title from the second book of poems by one of the best known British poets of the Second World War, Alun Lewis (1915-1944). The collection was published posthumously in 1945 and charts Lewis’ short day's journey into night, the thunder of cannon filling his pages, along with clash of steel, clatter of horses' hooves and bubbles of blood 'neath stiff upper lips, prophetically “till a bullet stopped his song”.
In November 1942, Lewis had sailed for India and in early 1944 he was moved to the Burmese front. On his way, at Arakan in Lower Burma, he was killed in a mysterious incident involving his own pistol. Drawing on the bristling energy and brooding lyricism which unfolds through the verses, this new work for solo trumpet presents an expressive and dramatic musical reaction to the inspiration of Lewis’ poetry, through Gordon’s highly idiomatic language. An opening Prelude transforms into a Fanfare of battlefield colour, violence and personal tragedy, followed by a Nocturne of nihilism holy in its intensity. Motifs challenge and suspend, contrasting open and muted effects, evoking the raw imagery and bitter truths of soldiering, in sound, rhythm and dynamic contrast. In his last letter to his publishers, Alun Lewis wrote of these poems that they should be read as the musical score of a life that will again express itself in prose when the din of war and preparation for war had died down, and there was time again to write and rewrite. For Alun Lewis, those days would never come.
This is a studio recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's new work for tenor trombone and piano, Vermilion, after the painting by Henri Matisse, with soloist Yu Tamaki Hoso and pianist Kosuke Akimoto, recorded in Tokyo, 28 August 2021.
PROGRAM NOTES:
"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish" said renowned French artist, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), whose predilection for exploring and using color and composition in unique and vibrant ways fills his paintings with bold imagery often associated with the Fauvist Art movement. The thoughts of the painter Paul Gauguin were known to Matisse: writing about art and color, Gauguin said “How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion”. To his students, Matisse spoke not of red or orange, but vermilion. From around 1912, goldfish, which had been introduced to Europe from East Asia in 17th century became a recurring subject in the work of Matisse. They appear in no less than nine of his paintings, as well as in his drawings and prints. For Matisse, the goldfish came to symbolize a tranquil state of mind and a lost paradise. Visiting Tangier, Matisse had been intrigued to see how people would daydream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls. In his paintings, the goldfish immediately attract attention due to their color: vermilion. The bright red-orange, so evident and seemingly bursting with its components of red and yellow fused in a dense complicated color, contrasts strongly to surrounding blues and greens, each made brighter by the presence of the other.
This is a live recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's work for solo harp, Jeux de Création, commissioned for Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra principal harp, Anne-Sophie Bertrand. The studio recording of this work will be released on the Naxos label (the CD will also be called Jeux de Création) in October 2021.
PROGRAM NOTES: Jeux de Création, for solo harp, takes inspiration from the aesthetic sound world of the 1920’s, as seen through the lens of the composer’s own contemporary classical language. Thematic material drawn from two landmark works of the era - Claude Debussy’s Jeux and Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde – are woven into the fabric of this expressive modern score of eight virtuoso minutes. Extended techniques, including xylophonics, harmonics, palm clusters and flutter glissandi, are interwoven with more traditional harp gestures to draw a vivid portrait of musical creation games.
Geoffrey Gordon 17 May 2021
“Jeux de Création by the American composer Geoffrey Gordon is a brilliant, even spectacular work in all respects.”
- Pizzicato (November 2021)
"French-American harpist Anne-Sophie Bertrand plays a diverse program of music for harp, going back as far as E.T.A. Hoffmann, the older colleague and promoter of Beethoven, and as far forward as American composer Geoffrey Gordon.
Absolutely the most interesting piece on this entire album is Gordon’s Jeux de Création, music that is not just modern but very creative and highly atmospheric."
- The Art Music Lounge (November 2021)
Horn soloist Tommi Hyytinen (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra), mezzo soprano Niina Keitel and pianist Marko Hilpo give the European premiere of composer Geoffrey Gordon's chamber vocal work, Winterleben, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland - Monday, 7 June 2021 . Winterleben is a song cycle setting five texts, in German, by Mahler's favorite poet, Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano. This work was originally commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, and first premiered in Zipper Hall,Los Angeles, on 7 August 2015.
Horn soloist Tommi Hyytinen (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra), mezzo soprano Niina Keitel and pianist Marko Hilpo give the European premiere of composer Geoffrey Gordon's chamber vocal work, Winterleben, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland - Monday, 7 June 2021 . Winterleben is a song cycle setting five texts, in German, by Mahler's favorite poet, Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano. This work was originally commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, and first premiered in Zipper Hall,Los Angeles, on 7 August 2015.
GORDON: Roman Rituals for solo horn Saar Berger, horn
PROGRAM NOTES:
The flame is a reminder of Pentecost when witnesses were unified by the power of the Holy Spirit and saw "tongues, as of fire" (Acts 2:3).
Pentecost comes from a Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot. The apostles were celebrating this festival when the Holy Spirit descended on them. It sounded like a very strong wind, and it looked like tongues of fire. The apostles then found themselves speaking in foreign languages, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost is the Greek name for Shavuot, the spring harvest festival of the Israelites, which was going on when the Holy Spirit came. The disciples were together in Jerusalem after Jesus' Resurrection and return to heaven, fearful because he had left them.
Speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift that can be manifested as either a human language or a heavenly supernatural language in three ways: The "sign of tongues" refers to xenoglossia, wherein one speaks an actual language they have never learned.
Bible: 1 Corinthians 14 : Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God.
The devil mostly speaks a language of his own called Bellsybabble which he makes up himself as he goes along but when he is very angry he can speak quite bad French very well though some who have heard him say that he has a strong Dublin accent. The name "Bellsybabble" is a pun on Beelzebub, "babble" and Babel.
Vedic Sanskrit In Vedic religion, "speech" Vāc, i.e. the language of liturgy, now known as Vedic Sanskrit, is considered the language of the gods.
The eight muscles of the human tongue are classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic. The four intrinsic muscles act to change the shape of the tongue, and are not attached to any bone.
TEXT REFERENCES:
Hebrew: "Sha–bu–'ot" (Pentecost) "mi–ba–tar yo–ma ṭa–ba" (after the holy day)
Latin: “De–us” (God) “Lin–gua” (tongue)
Greek: “Kyr–i–e e–lei–son” (Lord have mercy)
Vedic Sanskrit: “de–vá” (God) “yaj–ñá” (sacrifice)
Babble/Babel: “Bell–sy–bab–ble" (devil speech)
This is a live recording of Geoffrey Gordon's new work for piano trio, Ewelme 1475 ... a work responding to the plague of 1471-1475. Below is the program note from the score:
"According to the chronicle of the grey friars at King's Lynn, the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe in Dorset– today normally referred to as Weymouth – shortly before the Feast of St. John The Baptist on 24 June 1348…..The Black Death was the first occurrence of the Second Pandemic, which continued to strike England and the rest of Europe more or less regularly until the 18th century. An outbreak which began in 1471 took as much as 10–15 percent of the population…."
Caption for the cover photo: St Mary’s parish church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire, 1475: memento mori
This is the world premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Aphrodite and Eros (fighting off the advances of Pan), for violin and cello, with violinist Yuri Revich and cellist Benedict Klöckner, from the International Music Festival Koblenz 2020 (IMUKO).
This work is inspired by a sculpture dating from ca. 100 BC, from Delos, now housed in the Exhibition Room of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece.
Notes from the museum curator:
The naked goddess of beauty and love is rendered frontally with hair well-combed and tied up by means of a scarf bound in a bow above her parting. The manner in which she bends her left leg lends a gracefulness to her stance. She holds her left hand in front of her pubic triangle which she is trying to cover or protect with her palm from the indiscreet intentions of the philanderer Pan, while she brandishes her sandal in her raised right hand in an attempt to deter him. The goat-footed, horned god has seized her left wrist with his sinewy left hand. He leans on a tree trunk covered with an animal's skin and has left his hunting stick (lagobolon) at the foot of the tree. The little, winged son of Aphrodite, Eros, is trying to repulse Pan by grasping his right horn. On the low base of the group an inscription is carved 'Dionysos, son of Zenon who was son Theodoros, from Beirut dedicated [this offering] to the ancestral gods for his own benefit and that of his children'.
This is an excerpt of the world premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Peter Quince at the Clavier, for baritone and piano - a setting of the Wallace Stevens poem - from the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna - 16 March 2018. Baritone Tobias Greenhalgh and pianist Marcin Koziel perform.
PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER Wallace Stevens
I.
Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the selfsame sounds On my spirit make a music, too. Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you, Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in the elders by Susanna: Of a green evening, clear and warm, She bathed in her still garden, while The red-eyed elders, watching, felt The basses of their beings throb In witching chords, and their thin blood Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.
This is the premiere (live) recording of Geoffrey Gordon's Bagatelle after Beethoven, a solo piano work commissioned for the International Beethoven Project’s Beethoven Festival: REVOLUTION 2012 and performed by pianist James Giles, 16 September 2012, at the National Pastime Theater, Chicago.
This is the second movement of the premiere performance of composer Geoffrey Gordon's bass clarinet concerto, Prometheus, featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra, from Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, with soloist Laurent Ben Slimane and guest conductor, Martyn Brabbins, 19 January 2019.
PROGRAM NOTE:
Prometheus is inspired by the short story by Franz Kafka, based on the Greek legend. That text is as follows:
There are four legends concerning Prometheus:
I. According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
II. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
III. According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten.
IV. According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.
There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.--The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.
Franz Kafka (1917) public domain
This is an excerpt from the first movement of the premiere performance of composer Geoffrey Gordon's bass clarinet concerto, Prometheus, featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra, from Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, with soloist Laurent Ben Slimane and guest conductor, Martyn Brabbins, 19 January 2019.
PROGRAM NOTE:
Prometheus is inspired by the short story by Franz Kafka, based on the Greek legend. That text is as follows:
There are four legends concerning Prometheus:
I. According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
II. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
III. According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten.
IV. According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.
There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.--The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.
Franz Kafka (1917) public domain
This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's new chamber work, Cosmic Inflation and the End of the Dark Ages - commissioned by the Institut Curie, as part of the Muse-IC project - from the performance in Paris, at the Salle Cortot concert hall, on 12 March 2019, featuring an ensemble drawn from the musicians of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by Marc Desmons. Cosmic Inflation and the End of the Dark Ages, scored for bass clarinet (doubling Bb clarinet), string quartet, piano and harp, is inspired by the research of astrophysicist Herve Dole into the first vibrations of the universe.
VIDEO OF CONCERT PERFORMANCE: https://youtu.be/psbVGXidTrg?t=2547
This is the studio recording of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude), for cello and piano, featuring cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, which premiered at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 17 December 2015.
"The engaging and colorful 'Fathoms' links to the past with unabashedly programmatic, extroverted storytelling. Using a range of extended techniques and unusual textures, Mr. Gordon vividly sketches characters and scenes from 'The Tempest.' Caliban’s gruffness, Ariel’s quicksilver curiosity, the glowing romance between Ferdinand and Miranda all came alive in Mr. Moldrup and Mr. Beck’s intense playing. The final movement imagines Prospero drowning his book, with Mr. Moldrup gradually tuning the bottom string of his cello downward, creating the unnerving sensation of something sinking, slowly, to ever darker depths."
The New York Times: 18 December 2015
This is the studio recording of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude), for cello and piano, featuring cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, which premiered at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 17 December 2015.
"The engaging and colorful 'Fathoms' links to the past with unabashedly programmatic, extroverted storytelling. Using a range of extended techniques and unusual textures, Mr. Gordon vividly sketches characters and scenes from 'The Tempest.' Caliban’s gruffness, Ariel’s quicksilver curiosity, the glowing romance between Ferdinand and Miranda all came alive in Mr. Moldrup and Mr. Beck’s intense playing. The final movement imagines Prospero drowning his book, with Mr. Moldrup gradually tuning the bottom string of his cello downward, creating the unnerving sensation of something sinking, slowly, to ever darker depths."
The New York Times: 18 December 2015
This is an excerpt from the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's chamber work for two string quartets, after the Paul Éluard surrealist poem, La terre is bleue comme une orange, featuring the Wadi Ensemble. The work, commissioned as part of the Merz Prize in Music Composition, was installed at the Museo Archeologico Regionale “Antonino Salinas,” in Palermo, Sicily, on 19 May 2019. The piece is designed to be played either by two live string quartets, or a single quartet, playing against a recording of itself.....
TEXT:
La terre est bleue comme une orange Jamais une erreur les mots ne mentent pas Ils ne vous donnent plus à chanter Au tour des baisers de s’entendre Les fous et les amours Elle sa bouche d’alliance Tous les secrets tous les sourires Et quels vêtements d’indulgence À la croire toute nue.
Les guêpes fleurissent vert L’aube se passe autour du cou Un collier de fenêtres Des ailes couvrent les feuilles Tu as toutes les joies solaires Tout le soleil sur la terre Sur les chemins de ta beauté.
(English translation)
The Earth is blue like an orange Never an error the words don't lie They don't give you any more to sing In the turn of kisses to understand The crazy and the loves She her kiss of alliance All the secrets all the smiles And what clothing of indulgence To believe her completely naked.
The wasps bloom green The dawn passes round the neck A necklace of windows Of wings covering the leaves You have all the solar joys All the Sun above the Earth Above the paths of your beauty.
Horn soloist Ben Goldscheider premieres composer Geoffrey Gordon's new chamber work, THORN, at Conway Hall, London, in a performance from 3 February 2019. Callum Smart (violin) and Richard Uttley (piano), of the Ashwell Trio, are also featured.
This work is inspired, in part, by a relic said to be a thorn from Jesus's crown, kept at Stonyhurst College, in Clitheroe, Lancashire, for the last 200 years. The thorn, enshrined in a glass case, has Mary Queen of Scots' pearls entwined around it. The Crown of Thorns is said to have been seized from Constantinople, the imperial capital of the Roman Empire, in the Fourth Crusade - around AD 1200 - and was later sold to King Louis IX of France while he was in Venice. King Louis kept the religious relic in the specially-built Saint Chapel and thorns were broken off from the crown and given to people who married into the family as gifts. The thorn at Stonyhurst College - a 400-year-old Jesuit boarding school - was said to have been given to Mary Queen of Scots when she married into the French royal family. Mary then took it with her to Holyrood, in Edinburgh, and following her execution in 1587, it was passed from her loyal servant, Thomas Percy, to his daughter, Elizabeth Woodruff, who then gave it to her confessor - a Jesuit priest - in 1600. The Jesuits brought it with them to the college and it has been kept there ever since. In deference to the date of the thorn arriving at Stonyhurst, this work quotes, Why art thou so heavy, o my soul? of 17th c. English composer, Orlando Gibbons (1583 – 1625).
This work was originally funded by the Britten Sinfonia.
This is the studio recording, on the Signum label, of Geoffrey Gordon's double concerto, Saint Blue, commissioned for the English String Orchestra and soloists Simon Desbruslais and Clare Hammond, through funds provided by Arts Council England. Inspired by the works of Russian visual artist and visionary, Wassily Kandinsky, Saint Blue (scored for trumpet, piano and strings) is divided into two contrasting sections, with the second essentially embedded in the first—a kind of sonic exploration of the sacred and profane—in a fairly straight-forward A-B-A design. The first section is a reaction to Kandinsky’s 1911 All Saints I (part of the Stadtische Galerie’s permanent collection in Munich), and features the soloists and full string orchestra in a shared expression of this colorful masterpiece. The contrasting B section draws the orchestra’s principal double bass into a trio with the trumpet and piano soloists, creating a kind of extended, jazz-infused cadenza, after Kandinsky’s In Blue (1925; part of the Kunstsammlung Museum’s collection in Dusseldorf). An animated return to the tutti string orchestra and some (evolved) thematic music from All Saints I, concludes Saint Blue.
"Geoffrey Gordon’s Saint Blue, inspired by two Kandinsky paintings ('All Saints 1' and 'In Blue', well worth a web search), is by far the best work on this engaging disc; a taut and exhilarating single movement concerto, wonderfully played by soloists Simon Desbruslais and Clare Hammond."
–Chris Achenbach Classical Ear (UK): 30 April 2018
"Geoffrey Gordon's Saint Blue is inspired by two Kandinsky paintings, All Saints I and In Blue and constructed as 'a sonic exploration of the sacred and profane,' with the trumpet deployed first as an instrument of heavenly summons, then as the bluesy soul of jazz in this complex, richly-satisfying work."
-Kate Wakeling BBC Music Magazine: January 2018
This is a live performance of Geoffrey Gordon's new work for string orchestra, Gotham News, after the painting of the same name by Dutch artist Willem de Kooning (1955), with the Radom Chamber Orchestra and conductor Szymon Morus, Krzysztof Penderecki Concert Hall, Radom, Poland - 29 November 2019.
Gotham News was commissioned by the Merz Foundation as part of the Mario Merz Prize in Music Composition awarded to Mr. Gordon in 2017, and was premiered in Sicily, with the WADI Ensemble and conductor Willy Merz, in a performance at the Chiesa di Santa Caterina, in Bellini Plaza, Palermo, Italy, on 13 October 2018.
This is a live performance of the Postlude from composer Geoffrey Gordon's Interiors of a Courtyard, for mandolin and guitar, featuring the Rosetta Contemporary Ensemble, one of Japan's premiere new music groups. Takaaki Shibata, mandolin and Kosuke Hashizume, guitar, are featured in a performance from 25 August, 2018, at the Gohki Endo Museum of Art, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.
Listen to the entire Interiors of a Courtyard, from a recording in Naples with Fabio Gallucci, mandolin & Antonio Pilato, guitar, here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFB7AD9DEFDE41169
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group gives the world premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Harmonie, a setting of a text by Karl Marx, as part of the Wilde Lieder Marx.Music Project. Scored for soprano and solo cello, Harmonie is a setting of an early romantic text by the political thinker and theorist, dedicated to his love, Jenny, from Buch der Lieder 1836, featuring soprano Elizabeth Atherton and cellist Ulrich Heinen, given on 1st September 2018, in Marx's hometown of Trier, Germany. Recording courtesy of German Radio SWR2. A studio recording of this work is available on the Coviello label. http://covielloclassics.de/en/Katalog/cov-91914-wilde-lieder-marx-music/
TEXT:
Harmonie (an Jenny)
Kennst Du das süsse Zauberbild, Wo Seelen in einander fliessen, In einem Hauche sich ergiessen, Melodisch voll und freundlich mild?
Sie glühen auf in einer Purpurrose, Und bergen sich verschämt im weichen Moose.
Und walle weit durch Flur und Land, Das Zauberbild wirst Du nicht finden, Kein Talisman vermag's zu binden, Und keine Sonne je es fand.
Es ist in ihrem Scheine nicht entsprossen, Hat keine Erdennahrung je genossen.
Drum bleibt es ewig prangend stehn, Ob schwingt die Zeit den raschen Flügel, Apollo fast der Rosse Zügel, Und Welten stumm im Nichts vergehn.
In sich hat's eine Kraft sich selbst erzeuget, Die keine Welt, die selbst kein Gott ihm beuget.
Es ähnelt wohl dem Zytherklang, Gespielt auf einer ew'gen Leier, In stetem Glühen, steter Feier, In hohem, sehnsuchtsvollem Drang.
O! horch den Saiten, die in Dir erschallen, Zu suchen wird Dein Fuß nicht weiterwallen.
Karl Marx (1836)
This is the sixth song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets)for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring mezzo soprano Natalia Kawalek, baritone Tobias Greenhalgh and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 81
Ya eres mía. Reposa con tu sueño en mi sueño. Amor, dolor, trabajos, deben dormir ahora. Gira la noche sobre sus invisibles ruedas y junto a mí eres pura como el ámbar dormido. Ninguna más, amor, dormirá con mis sueños. Irás, iremos juntos por las aguas del tiempo. Ninguna viajará por la sombra conmigo, sólo tú, siempreviva, siempre sol, siempre luna. Ya tus manos abrieron los puños delicados y dejaron caer suaves signos sin rumbo, tus ojos se cerraron como dos alas grises, mientras yo sigo el agua que llevas y me lleva: la noche, el mundo, el viento devanan su destino, y ya no soy sin ti sino sólo tu sueño.
And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream. Love and pain and work must sleep now. The night turns on its invisible wheels, and beside me you are pure as sleeping amber. No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go, we will go together, through the waters of time. No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon. Your hands have already opened their delicate fists and let their soft drifting signs fall away, your eyes have closed like two gray wings, while I follow the water that you carry and that carries me away: the night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny, and already without you I am only your dream.
This is the fourth song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets)for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring mezzo soprano Natalia Kawalek and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 66
No te quiero sino porque te quiero y de quererte a no quererte llego y de esperarte cuando no te espero pasa mi corazón del frío al fuego. Te quiero sólo porque a ti te quiero, te odio sin fin, y odiándote te ruego, y la medida de mi amor viajero es no verte y amarte como un ciego. Tal vez consumirá la luz de Enero, su rayo cruel, mi corazón entero, robándome la llave del sosiego. En esta historia sólo yo me muero y moriré de amor porque te quiero, porque te quiero, amor, a sangre y fuego.
I do not love you except because I love you and I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you so my heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it is you the one I love, I hate you endlessly, and hating you I beg you, and the measure of my changing love for you that I do not see you but love you blindly. Maybe the January light will consume with its cruel ray, my whole heart, stealing from my the key to true calm. In this tale, only I die and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.
This is the fifth song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets)for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring baritone Tobias Greenhalgh and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 79
De noche, amada, amarra tu corazón al mío y que ellos en el sueño derroten las tinieblas como un doble tambor combatiendo en el bosque contra el espeso muro de las hojas mojadas. Nocturna travesía, brasa negra del sueño interceptando el hilo de las uvas terrestres con la puntualidad de un tren descabellado que sombra y piedras frías sin cesar arrastrara. Por eso, amor, amárrame el movimiento puro, a la tenacidad que en tu pecho golpea con las alas de un cisne sumergido, para que a las preguntas estrelladas del cielo responda nuestro sueño con una sola llave, con una sola puerta cerrada por la sombra.
Tie your heart at night to mine, love, and both will defeat the darkness like twin drums beating in the forest against the heavy wall of wet leaves. Night crossing, black coal of dream that cuts the thread of earthly orbs with the punctuality of a headlong train that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly. Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement, to the grip on life that beats in your breast, with the wings of a submerged swan, So that our dream might reply to the sky's questioning stars with one key, one door closed to shadow.
This is the first song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets)for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring mezzo soprano Natalia Kawalek and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 2
Amor, cuántos caminos hasta llegar a un beso, qué soledad errante hasta tu compañía! Siguen los trenes solos rodando con la lluvia. En Taltal no amanece aún la primavera. Pero tú y yo, amor mío, estamos juntos, juntos desde la ropa a las raíces, juntos de otoño, de agua, de caderas, hasta ser sólo tú, sólo yo juntos. Pensar que costó tantas piedras que lleva el río, la desembocadura del agua de Boroa, pensar que separados por trenes y naciones tú y yo teníamos que simplemente amarnos, con todos confundidos, con hombres y mujeres, con la tierra que implanta y educa los claveles.
Love, how many roads to reach a kiss what wandering loneliness until your company! Follow the train tracks alone running with the rain. In Taltal there is neither daybreak nor spring. But you and I, my love, we are together, together from our clothes down to our roots together in the autumn, in water, in hips, until it becomes only you, only me together. To think that it took many stones carried by the river, the river mouth of Boroa To think that trains and nations separate us You and I had only to love one another: with all the confusions, with men and women, with the land that sows and makes bloom the carnations.
This is the third song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets) for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring mezzo soprano Natalia Kawalek and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 44
Sabrás que no te amo y que te amo puesto que de dos modos es la vida, la palabra es un ala del silencio, el fuego tiene una mitad de frío. Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte, para recomenzar el infinito y para no dejar de amarte nunca: por eso no te amo todavía. Te amo y no te amo como si tuviera en mis manos las llaves de la dicha y un incierto destino desdichado. Mi amor tiene dos vidas para armarte. Por eso te amo cuando no te amo y por eso te amo cuando te amo.
You must know that I do not love and that I love you, because everything alive has its two sides; a word is one wing of silence, fire has its cold half. I love you in order to begin to love you, to start infinity again and never to stop loving you: that is why I do not love you yet. I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held keys in my hand to a future of joy and a wretched, muddled fate. My love has two lives, in order to love you. That is why I love you when I do not love you, and also why I love you when I do.
This is the second song from Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Sonnets from Neruda, setting six sonnets from Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets)for mezzo soprano, baritone and piano, in a performance at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, featuring baritone Tobias Greenhalgh and pianist Marcin Koziel, 16 March 2018.
Soneto 11
Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado, no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia, busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día. Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada, de tus manos color de furioso granero, tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas, quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra. Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura, la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro, quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your proud countenance, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your warm heart, like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
This is a studio recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's new orchestral work, PUCK - fleeing from the dawn, inspired by the painting of the same name by Scottish artist, David Scott (1837). The performance features the Brno Philharmonic and conductor Mikel Toms (July 2017).
In the last scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck, comes into the palace of Theseus after all the mortals have retired for the night. He says,
And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic.
Oberon, Titania and their band of fairies then enter, "Hand in hand, with fairy grace" to "sing, and bless this place." Their work, Oberon says, must be finished by break of day. Scott's work depicts a scene that does not occur until the play is over and all the supernatural creatures have left the palace. It is this imagined scene which inspires the music for this tone poem.
This is the world premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's CRUCIFIXUS for double choir (SATB/SATB) and solo cello, featuring the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir and cello soloist Toke Møldrup, given on 30 April 2017, Holmens Kirke, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The recording is courtesy of Danish Radio, available here: http://www.dr.dk/p2/p2-koncerten/p2-koncerten-2017-05-03
TEXT:
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas. Et ascendit in coelum: sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, judicare vivos et mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis.
(English translation):
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried. And the third day According to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven: He sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory, to judge the living and the dead; His kingdom will have no end.
www.geoffreygordoncomposer.com www.tokemoldrup.com www.mogensdahl.dk/en/mogens-dahl-chamber-choir/
This is the third movement of Geoffrey Gordon's Three Summer Sketches, for solo piano, commissioned for pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi by the Wisconsin Arts Board, and recorded on the Ravello label. Buy the whole disc here: http://www.ravellorecords.com/wisconsinsoundscapes/
This is the second movement of Geoffrey Gordon's Three Summer Sketches, for solo piano, commissioned for pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi by the Wisconsin Arts Board, and recorded on the Ravello label. Buy the whole disc here: http://www.ravellorecords.com/wisconsinsoundscapes/
This is the first movement of Geoffrey Gordon's Three Summer Sketches, for solo piano, commissioned for pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi by the Wisconsin Arts Board, and recorded on the Ravello label. Buy the whole disc here: http://www.ravellorecords.com/wisconsinsoundscapes/
This is the world premiere performance of the third movement of Geoffrey Gordon's QUINTET for Clarinet and Strings, played by the JACK Quartet and New York Philharmonic principal clarinet, Anthony McGill. The New York Times called the work, commissioned by the American Music Project, "darkly seductive....."
"Mr. Gordon’s Clarinet Quintet combines a zest for sonic experimentation with a four-movement structure built around thematic signposts — reiterations of an opening motif — that guide the listener through a colorful and atmospheric journey. That motif is built on accordion-like layered string chords from which the clarinet emerges almost coyly, with a veiled sound and sinewy flutter."
Across four movements, the interaction between clarinet and strings changes, with moments of bright commonality and others in which the warm, musky clarinet tone contrasts with the sharper and glossier one of the string quartet. In the third movement, small cells of players break away for a series of arresting duos and a trio that chart different interpersonal dynamics. The work ends softly on a languid low clarinet trill, which Mr. McGill played so quietly that the final notes were not so much heard as felt as gently pulsating airwaves."
The New York Times: 22 November 2015
This is the world premiere performance of the second movement of Geoffrey Gordon's QUINTET for Clarinet and Strings, played by the JACK Quartet and New York Philharmonic principal clarinet, Anthony McGill. The New York Times called the work, commissioned by the American Music Project, "darkly seductive....."
"Mr. Gordon’s Clarinet Quintet combines a zest for sonic experimentation with a four-movement structure built around thematic signposts — reiterations of an opening motif — that guide the listener through a colorful and atmospheric journey. That motif is built on accordion-like layered string chords from which the clarinet emerges almost coyly, with a veiled sound and sinewy flutter."
Across four movements, the interaction between clarinet and strings changes, with moments of bright commonality and others in which the warm, musky clarinet tone contrasts with the sharper and glossier one of the string quartet. In the third movement, small cells of players break away for a series of arresting duos and a trio that chart different interpersonal dynamics. The work ends softly on a languid low clarinet trill, which Mr. McGill played so quietly that the final notes were not so much heard as felt as gently pulsating airwaves."
The New York Times: 22 November 2015
This is the world premiere performance of the fourth movement of Geoffrey Gordon's QUINTET for Clarinet and Strings, played by the JACK Quartet and New York Philharmonic principal clarinet, Anthony McGill. The New York Times called the work, commissioned by the American Music Project, "darkly seductive....."
"Mr. Gordon’s Clarinet Quintet combines a zest for sonic experimentation with a four-movement structure built around thematic signposts — reiterations of an opening motif — that guide the listener through a colorful and atmospheric journey. That motif is built on accordion-like layered string chords from which the clarinet emerges almost coyly, with a veiled sound and sinewy flutter."
Across four movements, the interaction between clarinet and strings changes, with moments of bright commonality and others in which the warm, musky clarinet tone contrasts with the sharper and glossier one of the string quartet. In the third movement, small cells of players break away for a series of arresting duos and a trio that chart different interpersonal dynamics. The work ends softly on a languid low clarinet trill, which Mr. McGill played so quietly that the final notes were not so much heard as felt as gently pulsating airwaves."
The New York Times: 22 November 2015
This is the world premiere performance of the first movement of Geoffrey Gordon's QUINTET for Clarinet and Strings, played by the JACK Quartet and New York Philharmonic principal clarinet, Anthony McGill. The New York Times called the work, commissioned by the American Music Project, "darkly seductive....."
"Mr. Gordon’s Clarinet Quintet combines a zest for sonic experimentation with a four-movement structure built around thematic signposts — reiterations of an opening motif — that guide the listener through a colorful and atmospheric journey. That motif is built on accordion-like layered string chords from which the clarinet emerges almost coyly, with a veiled sound and sinewy flutter."
Across four movements, the interaction between clarinet and strings changes, with moments of bright commonality and others in which the warm, musky clarinet tone contrasts with the sharper and glossier one of the string quartet. In the third movement, small cells of players break away for a series of arresting duos and a trio that chart different interpersonal dynamics. The work ends softly on a languid low clarinet trill, which Mr. McGill played so quietly that the final notes were not so much heard as felt as gently pulsating airwaves."
The New York Times: 22 November 2015
This is the fourth movement of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
"Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again."
This is the third movement of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
"You taught me language, and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse ..."
This is the second movement of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
"To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds ...."
This is the first movement of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
Miranda: "Do you love me?" Ferdinand: "O heaven! O earth! Bear witness to this sound ...."
This is the prelude from Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
"A most auspicious star...."
This is the fifth movement of Geoffrey Gordon's FATHOMS, Five Impressions of Shakespeare's The Tempest (with Prelude) for cello and piano, in a performance by cellist Toke Moldrup and pianist Steven Beck, from Carnegie Hall, 17 December 2015.
"But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book."
This is the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Winterleben, a setting of five texts by poet Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano, commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain, through the gracious support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Friday, August 7, 2015 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
Andrew Bain, horn Renee Rapier, mezzo Nic Gerpe, piano
PROGRAM NOTE:
Friedrich Rückert, (1788-1866) – German poet, philologist, orientalist – was a profound source of inspiration for Gustav Mahler. The composer identified deeply with the directness and refined sensibility of his verses, declaring that ‘after Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert – this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative kind’. Mahler set many of Rückert’s texts—Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder—but of course there are many Rückert texts which he did not set, including the five poem collection known as Winterleben (Winter Life). What follows is a new work, for mezzo soprano, French horn soloist (sharing equal prominence throughout the work) and piano, based on these beautiful and evocative Rückert poems.
-Geoffrey Gordon
TEXT:
I. Die Winternachtigall
So laut im Winterzimmer schmettert Die Nachtigall, Daß sich ein Frühlingshain beblättert An ihrem Schall: Zum blauen Himmel wird die Decke Und jede Wand zur grünen Hecke, Zur Schattengrotte jede Dunkelecke, Des Vorhangs Weh'n zu Bäche-Rieselfall.
Nur wenn der Himmel oft so schaurig Durchs Fenster schaut, Dann klagt die Nachtigall so traurig Den Klagelaut, Als wollte sie ihr Los verklagen, Daß sie in Winterhaft muß schlagen Und schweigen einst, wann in beglücktern Tagen Der freie Frühling seinen Tempel baut.
Doch laß dich das nur nicht verdrießen Und singe zu! Ein Lenz muß auch im Winter sprießen, Den wirkest du. O Himmelskehl' im Zeitenfroste, Du bist gegeben uns zum Troste; Sing' nur, und ob es dir die Seele koste, In jede Seele Sehnsucht, Schmerz und Ruh'.
This is the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Winterleben, a setting of five texts by poet Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano, commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain, through the gracious support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Friday, August 7, 2015 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
Andrew Bain, horn Renee Rapier, mezzo Nic Gerpe, piano
PROGRAM NOTE:
Friedrich Rückert, (1788-1866) – German poet, philologist, orientalist – was a profound source of inspiration for Gustav Mahler. The composer identified deeply with the directness and refined sensibility of his verses, declaring that ‘after Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert – this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative kind’. Mahler set many of Rückert’s texts—Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder—but of course there are many Rückert texts which he did not set, including the five poem collection known as Winterleben (Winter Life). What follows is a new work, for mezzo soprano, French horn soloist (sharing equal prominence throughout the work) and piano, based on these beautiful and evocative Rückert poems.
-Geoffrey Gordon
TEXT:
II.Winter-Lerchenton
In Lüften hängt ein Lerchenton, Mein Ohr hat staunend ihn vernommen. Ist's eine, die noch nicht entflohn? Ist's eine, die zurückgekommen, Gelockt von Frühling schon, Da rings die Schöpfung noch von Winter ist beklommen?
Durch meine Seele zieht ein Schwung, Den jener Ton hat angeschlagen. Ist's Ahnung, ist's Erinnerung Von künftigen, von vor'gen Tagen? Ich fühle nur mich jung, Ob wie ich's war, ob wie ich sein werd'? ist zu fragen.
Verklungen ist die Melodie, Verschlungen von Schneewolkenherden; Und Winter ist's im Herzen, wie Am Himmel Winter und auf Erden, So Winter, als ob nie Gewesen Frühling sei und nimmer sollte werden.
This is the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Winterleben, a setting of five texts by poet Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano, commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain, through the gracious support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Friday, August 7, 2015 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
Andrew Bain, horn Renee Rapier, mezzo Nic Gerpe, piano
PROGRAM NOTE:
Friedrich Rückert, (1788-1866) – German poet, philologist, orientalist – was a profound source of inspiration for Gustav Mahler. The composer identified deeply with the directness and refined sensibility of his verses, declaring that ‘after Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert – this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative kind’. Mahler set many of Rückert’s texts—Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder—but of course there are many Rückert texts which he did not set, including the five poem collection known as Winterleben (Winter Life). What follows is a new work, for mezzo soprano, French horn soloist (sharing equal prominence throughout the work) and piano, based on these beautiful and evocative Rückert poems.
-Geoffrey Gordon
TEXT:
III. Der Abglanz der Rose
Wenn der Rose Liebesrot Ist im kurzen Lenz verglüht, Bleibt in Erdenwinternot Dir kein Trost, o mein Gemüt; Blick' hinauf! am Himmel sprüht Ew'ges Abend-Morgenrot: Deine Ros' ist hier nicht tot, Die dort oben doppelt blüht.
This is the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Winterleben, a setting of five texts by poet Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano, commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain, through the gracious support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Friday, August 7, 2015 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
Andrew Bain, horn Renee Rapier, mezzo Nic Gerpe, piano
PROGRAM NOTE:
Friedrich Rückert, (1788-1866) – German poet, philologist, orientalist – was a profound source of inspiration for Gustav Mahler. The composer identified deeply with the directness and refined sensibility of his verses, declaring that ‘after Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert – this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative kind’. Mahler set many of Rückert’s texts—Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder—but of course there are many Rückert texts which he did not set, including the five poem collection known as Winterleben (Winter Life). What follows is a new work, for mezzo soprano, French horn soloist (sharing equal prominence throughout the work) and piano, based on these beautiful and evocative Rückert poems.
-Geoffrey Gordon
TEXT:
IV. Erwartung
Wenn ich gegen Tages Mitte Setz' ins Zimmer meine Schritte, Die auf Schnee und Eis geweilt; Denk' ich, auf dem Wust des Tisches Liegen müss' ein Blatt, ein frisches Das vom Freunde Kund' erteilt, Wie die rötlich angeglühte Mandelblüte, Die voraus dem Frühling eilt.
Oder wann ich lange träumte, Wie er nun so lange säumte, Sich zu melden; kommt mir's vor, Selber müss' er aus den Ecken Treten, froh mich zu erschrecken, Ohne Meldebrief zuvor, Überraschend, wie die Feige Aus dem Zweige Ohne Blüte tritt hervor.
This is the premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Winterleben, a setting of five texts by poet Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano, commissioned for Los Angeles Philharmonic principal horn, Andrew Bain, through the gracious support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.
Friday, August 7, 2015 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles
Andrew Bain, horn Renee Rapier, mezzo Nic Gerpe, piano
PROGRAM NOTE:
Friedrich Rückert, (1788-1866) – German poet, philologist, orientalist – was a profound source of inspiration for Gustav Mahler. The composer identified deeply with the directness and refined sensibility of his verses, declaring that ‘after Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert – this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative kind’. Mahler set many of Rückert’s texts—Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder—but of course there are many Rückert texts which he did not set, including the five poem collection known as Winterleben (Winter Life). What follows is a new work, for mezzo soprano, French horn soloist (sharing equal prominence throughout the work) and piano, based on these beautiful and evocative Rückert poems.
-Geoffrey Gordon
TEXT:
V. Wintersonne
Mond und Sonne scheint so schön, Wie im Frühling immer; Öder nur die Winterhöh'n Macht der kalte Schimmer.
Ach vom Himmel kann die Lust Nicht hernieder steigen, Wenn der Erde, wenn der Brust Sie nicht schon ist eigen.