CDs

Recently, I have acquired a gaggle of new CDs (because they are a group of geese) for very little money. I have gotten 8 new CDs all for under the price of $40. Usually, that many CDs would cost you over $100, but I got 4 free ones and the others for below normal cost.

I got the following:

CAB4, featuring Tony MacAlpine on guitar, Bunny Brunel on Bass, Dennis Chambers on drums and Brian Auger on keyboards. They're a prog band more on the fusion side. All I need now is Cab3 and I'll have 1-4. The song writing on this album is not the best, mostly a bunch of tunes that everyone just kinda jams over, but there are some cool riffs and solos. The best part of the album is the groove and feel that Brunel and Chambers set up, and man do those two have some serious chops. MacAlpine is still getting better and better each new album he appears on. I saw him live with the Virgil Donati Band in SF and he was cool, so was Donati (the drummer) and Rufus Philpot (the bassist).

David Russell's new album Renaissance Favorites for Guitar. First off, I want to say that I think David Russell is one of the three greatest living classical guitar players (and there are a lot of fantastic players out there), and probably in the top ten of all time greats. The majority of this album is the sort of material that intermediate and early advanced classical guitar students play, so it's nice to hear a master perform stuff from the standard early music repetoire. There are pieces on here that both myself and my friend Chris play.

Saint-Saens Piano Trios performed by the Florestan Trio. This album has Trio #1 in F Op. 18 and Trio #2 in e-minor Op. 92. If I remember correctly, Saint-Saens only has three trios, all of which are piano trios: these two and an Op.65 Trio in Eb. Why they couldn't fit one more trio on the CD is beyond me--they could have done the complete trios. I love chamber music, especially string quartets and piano trios, and I've always liked Saint-Saens' chamber music, such as his string quartets and his sonata in d-minor for violin and piano. There have been a few extremely gifted child prodigies throughout music history. Child prodigy performers are here in every generation (now days they are practically like guitarists--a dime a dozen), but I mean the extremely rare child prodigy performer who also is a composer. One immediately thinks of Mozart, who by the age of 4 had facility as a performer and already was composing, though, I think, very few of Mozart's masterpieces were written before he was 21. There was also Felix Mendelssohn who was giving concerts and composing by the age of 9, and wrote, in his teens, music that far surpasses Mozart's prepubescent compositions. For instance, Mendelssohn's famous OCTET FOR STRINGS is a masterpiece, which he wrote when he was just 16. Shubert is another great child prodigy performer/composer. He wrote masterful songs and choral works as well as brillant chamber works and symphonies at the age of 17 and 18. Shubert was 29 (I think) when he died, and is considered one of the greatest composers to ever live. Chopin was already performing and composing Polonaises by the age of 7. Bizet attended the Conservatory in Paris before he turned 10. Liszt and Paganini were both giving full blown concerts of their own music by the time they were 11. And in the 20th century both Amy Beach and Erich Wolfgang Korngold were child prodigy performer/composers. Beach, at the age of 1 could sing 40 tunes accurately (I find this very hard to believe for purely linguistic reasons having to do with phonetic limitations in toddlers) and by the age of 7 was giving recitals of J.S.Bach, Haendel, Chopin, Beethoven and her own works. (Of course, Amy Beach pales as a composer to the others mentioned.) Korngold, by the time he was 13, had composed numerous works of deep complexity and technique. Saint-Saens is no exception, he was composing at 3 and performing whole piano concertos from memory by the age of 10.

Miguel Llobet Guitar music performed by guitarist Lorenzo Micheli. Llobet, along with Segovia, was a well-travelled international classical guitar performer, and he helped put the classical guitar on the map. He also composed a number of idiomatic pieces for the guitar, most notably his Catalan Folksongs and his 5 preludes. This album includes those pieces as well as a number of other lesser known Mazurkas, Scherzos, studies, and his Variation on a theme by Sor and the virtuoso work Respuesta (Impromptu). Llobet was a student of Tarrega (who was a student of Fernando Sor, I believe), and Llobet was the teacher of the famous classical guitarist Rey Del La Torre, who died in the early 1990's. Del La Torre was the teacher of one of my teachers. I had the opportunity to study with Del La Torre, but at the time I was too scared (I was young and dumb), having heard horror stories of his 'old-school' pedagogy . He died before I could get over my immaturity.

Mozart works for clavichord, performed by eminent musicologist, keyboardist, and conductor, Christopher Hogwood. This album is called "The Secret Mozart" and Hogwood purports that it is performing Mozart's keyboard music "as it was meant to be heard...on a clavichord the composer himself played." Now that's cool. Playing Mozart stuff you usually here on the piano, on the very instrument that was used in Mozart's own home. I love the sound of the clavichord. Ever since picking up Keith Jarrett's "Book of Ways", I've been on the look out for any and all clavichord recordings. The clavichord is similar to the harpsichord, but is gentler and more expressive. I once attended a master class given by Hogwood at the SF Conservatory on Baroque interpretation.

"Italian Renaissance Dances" performed by The King's Noyse (director David Douglass) and lutenist Paul O'Dette. This is great stuff and I've always loved Renaissance music. I've had the fortune of meeting Paul O'Dette on three different occasions. Twice in master classes and once after one of the best concerts I've ever been to, which was a recital of his hosted by the Department of Music at Sacramento State University (I saw that show with David Hudnut). O'Dette is an amazing performer and he had complete comtrol of the audience. He was amazing, walking up and down the aisles performing on his Renaissance lute like the troubadors of old. I was fortunate enough to meet O'Dette thanks to Richard Savino (who is also a great guitarist, lutenist, and musicologist) who both graciously shared his knowledge (by means of lessons also), resources, and time with me.

Christopher Parkening's new compilation album "Grace Like A River". This is all solo classical guitar stuff (with a few concerto excerps) that Parkening has recorded over his yeas as one of the most distinguished classical guiarists in the world. He was a favorite of Segovia and is a master, one of the greats. I've had, on two occasions, the pleasure of meeting and talking with Parkening, and I've seen him perform live three times. This album includes Bach's Chaconne from Violin Partita #2, Domeniconi's Koyunbaba, movements from concertos by Rodrigo, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and E. Bernstein, as well as works by Villa-Lobos, Albeniz, Tarrage, Ravel and Ponce.

Sharon Isbin Complete Bach Lute Suites on guitar. Isbin is another American virtuoso classical guitarist, and runs the guitar department at The Julliard School of Music. I now have at least 8 different versions of Bach's lute suites performed on the guitar as well as the German baroque lute.