Iii: canon 2/3. Ii: the wolf's lair -- Iii: we get away to bergamo -- Iv: the valley of the ciamin -- V: the bear's den -- Vi: the spring at ganna -- Vii: ice on the rosengarten -- Viii: antonio ballista sleeps in the police station -- Ix: the ghost at presule castle -- X: song for my birthday -- Xiv: the goblins' bridal procession at vossevangen -- Xv: the skuldal bride -- X: knut lurasens halling i -- Canon a 4 voci (andante sostenuto) -- Les adieux in janaceks manier (semplice, poco rubato E sempre parlando) -- The mad girl with the flaxen hair (presto, feroce) -- Keringo (allegretto grazioso) -- Hommage a nancy sinatra -- Homage to tchaikovsky (lendulettel) -- I: fuga (lento espressivo) -- Ii: presto -- Viii: I await you! -- Tears (quasi senza tempo) -- In memory of a just person (molto strascinato) -- Preludium (molto agitato) -- Koral (dolce, sostenuto, quasi legato) -- I: molto tranquillo -- Ii: andantino melancolico -- Iii: vivace (alla marcia) -- Iv: molto tranquillo -- V: polonaise (un poco cerimonioso) -- Recollection of a german march -- Children's waltz -- Piano-rag-music -- I: canon 5/7 -- Ii: canon 6/9/10/15 -- Iii: canon 2/3.
Summary:
To some, he's the dazzling prince-elect of the new-music scene; to others, he's the spoiled brat decked out in an entire wardrobe of the emperor's new clothes--and each side seems to preach to the converted. Well, whatever your take on the music of young British composer Thomas Ads̈, who has already written full-scale works in a stunning array of genres--from the sensitive cycle Five Eliot Landscapes to the opřa du scandale Powder Her Face and the symphony Asyla --give yourself an unprejudiced listen to Ads̈ as performer on the recital album Piano and you'll discover yet another dimension to the musical world inhabited by the young upstart--one that holds manifold surprising delights. The most obvious is, of course, the choice of program--and kudos to EMI for backing the bold choices Ads̈ has made--which flies against the current trend toward cozy familiarity or, at best, a mixture of chestnuts with scary unknowns. Not that this is "scary" modern music; instead, it's a gracious, beguiling manifesto for the art of the piano miniature, in modernist, postmodernist, neoclassical, even late-romantic guises. Even the familiar composers are represented by obscure works: some peasant dances of Grieg, some motley pages of little-known Stravinsky, a sonatina of Busoni. A lot of the fun here is in allowing yourself to discover some of the gems you'll very likely never have heard before: the personality-drenched, enigmatic, Paul Klee-like "games" of Kurtg̀ (one of Ads̈'s early mentors) and--most of all--Alexey Stanchinsky's completely enthralling Piano Sonata No. 2, which also happens to be the longest work here, though the varying senses of time each piece unravels become positively Einsteinian as the program progresses. Ads̈ is like a kid in a candy shop, sharing his enthusiasm with each discovery--it's the perfect merger of personalities between performer and composer. He doesn't play pyrotechnical showoff, even in the head-spinning dual-tempo feats of the Nancarrow canons concluding the disc. Rather, he seems more interested in inviting his audience to participate in each given world. Technique with insouciant energy and boundless humor--the entire recital is a blast. --Thomas May.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.