Gidon Kremer: New Seasons
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GLASS / PART / KANCHELI / UMEBAYASHI
Gidon Kremer: New Seasons
Gidon Kremer (violin) / Kremerata Baltica
[ Deutsche Grammophon / CD ]
Release Date: Wednesday 1 July 2015
Gidon Kremer returns to the Yellow label after more than a decade with the brand new reference recording of Philip Glass' Second Violin Concerto - "The American Seasons", hs first solo concerto album in many years.The first Glass Violin Concerto, performed by Kremer and released by DG in 1993, has achieved cult status and shipped close to 90k units (in Germany alone over 25k copies) - and has become a staple of DG's contemporary music catalogue.
Now, this extraordinary follow-up Concerto is at the heart of the repertoire of the Kremerata Baltica. Performed for the first time in San José, Costa Rica with Gidon Kremer as soloist in August 2013, it will be toured later in the year - info to follow shortly.
The album is completed by works of Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli - two composers both closely associated with Gidon Kremer, and who are both set to celebrate milestone 80th birthdays this year. Gidon has also added the short piece by the well-known Japanese film composer Shigeru Umebayashi as a tribute to his Japanese friends.
Four highly regarded visual artists and film maker have created four different films for each of the American Seasons that are projected to screens during concert performances.
"When the violinist Robert McDuffie asked Philip Glass to compose him a companion concerto to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Glass responded with a work with no clues among its four movements as to where winter, spring, summer or autumn can be found - listeners are left to decide for themselves, Giya Kancheli's ethereal Ex Contrario, for violin, cello and orchestra, is a complete contrast, as calm and beautiful as the surface of a deep, slow-moving river." (Guardian)
"The selections are unorthodox, and the performances unfailingly vibrant. Philip Glass's Second Violin Concerto - The American Four Seasons - was written as a companion piece for the ubiquitous Vivaldi, which it takes as a jumping-off point, updating the keyboard part from harpsichord to synthesizer. If the faster movements are striking more for high energy than memorability, more compelling are the pensive Prologue and Songs that intersperse them, written for solo violin and performed with great imagination by Kremer. This is followed by Pärt's lustrous Estonian Lullaby, one of two miniatures on the disc, the other coming from film composer Shigeru Umebayashi." (Sinfinimusic)
Tracks:
Glass, P:
Violin Concerto No. 2 'The American Four Seasons'
Gidon Kremer (violin)
Kancheli:
Ex contrario
Pärt:
Estonian Lullaby for female choir and string orchestra
Umebayashi:
Yumeji's Theme
