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Editorial Reviews
Andrew Violette offers a music festival's worth of new pieces on a 2 CD set aptly titled UltraViolette. The obsessive virtuosity, big emotions and lush Lisztian harmonies are still there but the pioneering use of large scale forms is not. Instead we get the smaller works, from 1970 to 1994, still mystical and ecstatic but more easily digestible.
The program opens with Pistis Sophias, a chant sung by New York based, Grammy nominated soprano, Elizabeth Farnum. Her beautiful lyric soprano makes a direct emotional connection in this first experiment with modality (written in 1970 when the composer was 16).
A flute sonata, played by Maggie Lauer, who nails the drop-dead hard licks, follows. Two of the four movements are transcriptions of the Five Sonatinas, also on the CD, played by the composer.
These Sonatinas (1994) explore episodic use of color, akin to late Debussy. Violette plays the big splashes of luminosity - with its crashing octaves, daring trills, extravagant gestures - with a thoroughly committed and spectacular musical scholarship.
Next is Six Performances, almost a jazz piece, played by Ensemble-Pi with the composer as guest pianist. Six pieces, six different tempos, six different moods - all played together!
A trio - played by Kaitilin Mahony, a horn player with American Composers Orchestra and Broadway; John Rojak, a member of the American Brass Quintet and Broadway shows, and the composer on keyboard - rounds out the first CD. This music is energetic and fiercely physical. There's a winding staccato bass trombone etude played to perfection as well as an expressive high-horn solo of considerable breath-control difficulty that has to be heard to be believed.
A trifle for piano four-hands about love transformed is zipped off by the composer and Janice Weber (she recorded the notoriously difficult 1838 version of the Liszt Etudes on IMP). You can hear the fun they had recording this new-complexity bonbon.
The rest of the second CD is art songs sung by Raemond Martin (soloist in the Met's Porgy and Bess; Scarpia with New York Grand Opera) and Sherry Zannoth (Met debut in Weill's Mahagonny).
Sherry, with her secure top, solid bottom and a penetrating high register, sings with a warmly vibrant, clear-eyed honesty. You have to hear her expressive pianissimos coupled with those powerful, Wagnerian high notes.
Raemond sings the soaring melodies with acute musical intuition, direct in his emotional connection, with great clarity of diction.
The mastering leans toward the wet, sounding a bit like a pop and there's that gorgeous peek-a-boo violet cover.
A must-have for new-music-philes!
The program opens with Pistis Sophias, a chant sung by New York based, Grammy nominated soprano, Elizabeth Farnum. Her beautiful lyric soprano makes a direct emotional connection in this first experiment with modality (written in 1970 when the composer was 16).
A flute sonata, played by Maggie Lauer, who nails the drop-dead hard licks, follows. Two of the four movements are transcriptions of the Five Sonatinas, also on the CD, played by the composer.
These Sonatinas (1994) explore episodic use of color, akin to late Debussy. Violette plays the big splashes of luminosity - with its crashing octaves, daring trills, extravagant gestures - with a thoroughly committed and spectacular musical scholarship.
Next is Six Performances, almost a jazz piece, played by Ensemble-Pi with the composer as guest pianist. Six pieces, six different tempos, six different moods - all played together!
A trio - played by Kaitilin Mahony, a horn player with American Composers Orchestra and Broadway; John Rojak, a member of the American Brass Quintet and Broadway shows, and the composer on keyboard - rounds out the first CD. This music is energetic and fiercely physical. There's a winding staccato bass trombone etude played to perfection as well as an expressive high-horn solo of considerable breath-control difficulty that has to be heard to be believed.
A trifle for piano four-hands about love transformed is zipped off by the composer and Janice Weber (she recorded the notoriously difficult 1838 version of the Liszt Etudes on IMP). You can hear the fun they had recording this new-complexity bonbon.
The rest of the second CD is art songs sung by Raemond Martin (soloist in the Met's Porgy and Bess; Scarpia with New York Grand Opera) and Sherry Zannoth (Met debut in Weill's Mahagonny).
Sherry, with her secure top, solid bottom and a penetrating high register, sings with a warmly vibrant, clear-eyed honesty. You have to hear her expressive pianissimos coupled with those powerful, Wagnerian high notes.
Raemond sings the soaring melodies with acute musical intuition, direct in his emotional connection, with great clarity of diction.
The mastering leans toward the wet, sounding a bit like a pop and there's that gorgeous peek-a-boo violet cover.
A must-have for new-music-philes!
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD
Andrew Violette is not a new composer, really He has been an interesting figure in the NYC music scene for awhile What makes his music vital is his attention to melody, colored by consonant but fascinating harmonies and in creating works that are a pleasure to listen to. This terrific two CD set offers a fine introduction to his music and is well worth exploring for anyone not familiar. His instrumental works are engaging, fascinating and dramatic. For example, his Flute Sonata and the Five Sonatinas are very fine works that will remind some of a little Hindemith, a little Piston, touches of Sessions but seem wholly unique as well. In fact, Violette proves the engaging aspects of his music with the Flute Sonata as well in his Clarinet Sonata, heard in a subsequent Innova release (On which is the massive Cello Sonata) Larger chamber music is another strong suit of the composer's. The jazzy and eccentric Trio for horn, bass trombone and piano and the equally stunning Six Performances for mixed ensemble (including synthesizer) are fascinating and are, nearly, unlike anything you have ever heard. Violette is a pianist by trade who has also had some experience in jazz and rock so it is not surprising that - in addition to the Five Sonatinas - "Amor Dammi Quel Fazzolettino", "Fantasy" and the brief "Fugamericana" are really nice works that have a lot of appeal and also technical requirements. "Amor..." in particular, for four hands, is a challenging but attractive. I found Violette's vocal music in this set to be especially compelling. The American Song Set for baritone and soprano and piano (voices used separately) is an extensive (forty minutes) song cycle based on some very well known American poetry and makes for wonderful listening. Violette matches the tone of text to the feel of melody quite well. This is equally true in the much more atmospheric "Two Spanish Arias" and in the familiar "Death Be not Proud" This is a very entertaining set and, clearly, Andrew Violette is a very interesting composer whose music exists in its own sphere, calling upon styles from all genres and trends to become something that is simultaneously hard to categorize and uniquely his own. Highly recommended!
Format:Audio CD
This is a strong and rich survey of the works of contemporary composer Andrew Violette. He writes in a tonal idiom, which leaves opportunities for dissonance as well as the satisfactions of consonance, and his music is colored by his knowledge of an interest in more popular song styles, including a touch of the blues here and there.
The balance between chamber music and vocal music shows off Violette's virtues. He's a kind of Neo-Romantic, though different than John Adams, much more directly in the line of Brahms and Charles Ives. The excellent songs especially belong to the expressive and personal style that Ives created, a willingness to do unexpected things and saying something opinionated about the texts. The chamber music is quite fine, with an attractive and forceful understatement, energetic interplay and idiomatic writing; the "Flute Sonata" is especially good, and well played by Maggie Lauer. An ideal introduction to Violette, and an ideal supplement to anyone already interested in his music.
The balance between chamber music and vocal music shows off Violette's virtues. He's a kind of Neo-Romantic, though different than John Adams, much more directly in the line of Brahms and Charles Ives. The excellent songs especially belong to the expressive and personal style that Ives created, a willingness to do unexpected things and saying something opinionated about the texts. The chamber music is quite fine, with an attractive and forceful understatement, energetic interplay and idiomatic writing; the "Flute Sonata" is especially good, and well played by Maggie Lauer. An ideal introduction to Violette, and an ideal supplement to anyone already interested in his music.
