It’s music for different duos on Now Is the Time, Saturday, January 25th at 9 pm Eastern on the all-classical stream at wrti.org and WRTI-HD2. Charles Knox’s Suite for Piano Four-Hands is puckish and not a little bold: its six movements take four minutes to play, and include an “Etude” that lasts all of six seconds. Chen Yi channels, for two violins and strings, two ancient Chinese instruments in her Romance of Hsiao and Ch’in, and George Crumb, in his Otherworldly Resonances for two amplified pianos, honors, in the “Palimpsest” movement, old manuscripts that have been erased and written over (and quotes the Gospel song “Bringing in the Sheaves”).
Van Stiefel sets poetry of Sidney Lanier for voice and two electric guitars in Souls and Raindrops, and Ursula Mamlok’s brilliant Sonatina is for two clarinets. Lance Hulme composed Manic Music, he said, for “two maniacal pianists,” and the playing seems to demand a certain craziness, as cavalier as you can be while staying in step with your duo partner.
[Update…Just heard from Lance Hulme: “Thank you for programming MM…it’s really not all that bad…if I can get through it, that means it’s doable. Fun fact: when Klammer4 played it in Karlsruhe, Germany, members of the audience got up and danced.” And here’s a link to the score: http://issuu.com/lancehulme.]
from Lance Hulme: Manic Music
PROGRAM:
Charles Knox: Suite for Piano Four-Hands
Chen Yi: Romance of Hsiao and Ch’in
George Crumb: Otherworldly Resonances
Van Stiefel: Souls and Raindrops
Ursula Mamlok: Sonatina
Lance Hulme: Manic Music
Every Saturday night at 9 Eastern, Kile Smith brings you Now Is the Time, all styles of contemporary concert music by living American composers on WRTI’s all-classical stream (just go to wrti.org and click on the Listen: Classical button at the top of any page). Here are the recording details and complete schedule. In the Philadelphia area with an HD radio? Dial us up at 90.1 FM-HD2, or find all the frequencies here, depending on where you are, from the Shore to the Poconos to Harrisburg to Dover. Thanks for supporting American contemporary music on WRTI!