New Music for Early Instruments

various artists compilation - New Music for Early Instruments

released in 1995

Performed by Ensemble Nova: Leta Miller - flutes, Linda Burman-Hall - harpsichord

with Frans Bruggen - recorder, Richard Crocker - baritone, Eva Legene - recorder

From the liner notes:

In the early years of the 20th century, many of the more adventuresome composers wished to break out of the mold of late 19th-century romantic tonality, and began searching for ways to expand or change musical language. These composers explored many different musical paths - a return to modality, borrowings from folk music and world music, "exotic" scales, and so-called "atonality" (leading to the development of the 12-tone system).
One path of escape from romanticism was archaism - engagement with the formal structures and tonal/harmonic languages of early European music. Manifestations of this approach can be seen in such diverse pieces as Vaughan-Williams's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (1909), Resphigi's Ancient Airs and Dances (1917-32) and Orff's Carmina Burana (1936). Paralleling this compositional interest in archaism was a budding interest in early instruments themselves. Various historians, performers and teachers began to research the construction and playing techniques of early instruments, and encouraged craftsmen to build replicas of them. A community of dedicated amateurs and semi-professionals began to form, dedicated to playing early music on modern replicas of the recorder, harpsichord, viola da gamba, and lute.
Before long, some European composers began to write new music for these early instruments.
...
In the United States, there were similar attempts in the 1930s and 1940s to find fresh approaches to the problem of musical language. Like many of their European counterparts, composers of the American "experimental tradition" (such as Seeger, Cowell, Hovhaness and McPhee) also looked to folk music, world music and early European music for fresh sources of compositional inspiration. Lou Harrison's baroque-influenced Six Sonatas for Cembalo (1943) - recorded on this CD - was a product of this movement.
...
Today, as this century draws to a close, fine players of early instruments abound, and musicmaking involving early instruments is now a frequent and respected aspect of concert life on both sides of the Atlantic. A substantial body of modern works has already been created for early instruments by both European and American composers, and twentieth-century compositions now occupy a small - but significant - place in the early instrument repertoire.

Tracklisting:

1. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata I (Moderato) {3:10}
(1943) for harpsichord

2. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata II (Allegro) {2:52}
(1943) for harpsichord

3. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata III (Moderato) {5:08}
(1943) for harpsichord

4. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata IV (Allegro) {1:42}
(1943) for harpsichord

5. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata V (Moderato) {3:21}
(1943) for harpsichord

6. Lou Harrison - Six Sonatas for Cembalo: Sonata I (Allegro) {3:11}
(1943) for harpsichord

7. Richard Felciano - Alleluia to the Heart of Stone {3:53}
(1984) for reverberated recorder

8. Richard Felciano - Responsory {7:09}
(1992) for solo male voice and live electronics

9. David Evan Jones - Fugue State: Prelude {3:31}
(1993) for flute and harpsichord

10. David Evan Jones - Fugue State: Fugal Variations {9:17}
(1993) for flute and harpsichord

11. David Evan Jones - Fugue State: Postlude {2:59}
(1993) for flute and harpsichord

12. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 1, a Luigi Dallapiccola {0:21}
(1978) for harpsichord

13. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 2, a Durand Begault {0:20}
(1978) for harpsichord

14. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 3, a Diane Carlson {0:28}
(1978) for harpsichord

15. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 4, a Graciela Paraskevaidis {0:38}
(1978) for harpsichord

16. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 5, a Padre Mujica {1:12}
(1978) for harpsichord

17. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 6, a Jacques Bekaert {0:13}
(1978) for harpsichord

18. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 7, a Pauline Oliveros {0:59}
(1978) for harpsichord

19. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 8, a Eduardo Bertola {0:20}
(1978) for harpsichord

20. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 9, a Linda Burman-Hall {0:38}
(1978) for harpsichord

21. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 10, a Coriun Aharonian {0:36}
(1978) for harpsichord

22. Gordon Mumma - Eleven-Note Pieces: 11, a Robert Ashley {0:14}
(1978) for harpsichord

23. Gordon Mumma - Decimal Passacaglia {1:25}
(1978) for harpsichord

24. Gordon Mumma - Octal Waltz {1:23}
(1980) for harpsichord

25. Robert Strizich - Aphorisms: Aphorism II {0:50}
(1986) for solo alto recorder

26. Robert Strizich - Aphorisms: Aphorism VII {1:20}
(1986) for solo alto recorder

27. Robert Strizich - Aphorisms: Aphorism VIII {1:02}
(1986) for solo alto recorder

28. Robert Strizich - Fantasia {6:27}
(1985) for recorder quartet

29. Robert Strizich - Tombeau {10:53}
(1982) for baroque flute and harpsichord

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