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Editorial Reviews
"Ms. Nonken is a pianist from music’s leading edge, associated with new works and with pieces whose challenges have withstood the last half century…Her dominant qualities would be advantages in any music: lightness in attack, clarity of texture, singing lines (and singing chords), variety of nuance, certainty in defining climaxes and in moving toward or away from them, a sense that the end of a movement must matter." —Paul Griffiths, New York Times
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Dage
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This CD contains Milton Babbitt's late masterpiece Allegro Penseroso, and in addition I could discover fine compositions by Jeff Nichols, Jason Eckardt, and confirm reservations against Finnissy (too many notes without purpose...). An excellent combination of serious piano music, and if money matters, the price is exceptional.
Unfortunately, the CD is also cheap in layout and liner notes. Kitsch photos of the performer, Marilyn Nonken, on nearly every page, in the meadow, looking at the sky - as this were a low budget collection of "classics for lovers". The narcisstic first sentence, "I am pleased to present these four works, all of which were written for me between 1996 and 1999", is a summary of what follows. But the performance is excellent, Marily Nonken has all reasons to be proud, and friends of new music have all reasons to be grateful.
Unfortunately, the CD is also cheap in layout and liner notes. Kitsch photos of the performer, Marilyn Nonken, on nearly every page, in the meadow, looking at the sky - as this were a low budget collection of "classics for lovers". The narcisstic first sentence, "I am pleased to present these four works, all of which were written for me between 1996 and 1999", is a summary of what follows. But the performance is excellent, Marily Nonken has all reasons to be proud, and friends of new music have all reasons to be grateful.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Peter Heddon
Format:Audio CD
The pivotal works on this lovingly planned disc (all the music was especially written for Nonken)are the Babbitt and Finnissy items.
Allegro Peneroso by Babbitt bubbles over with chirpy melodic motifs ingeniously scattered around the entire keyboard and one is left wondering how all this warmth of spirit could possibly derive from a serial system of any kind.I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to hear the 2nd Piano Concerto which Nonken infectiously refers in her programme notes.
Finnissy's discursive North American Spirituals might've collapsed in less imaginative hands than Nonken but she invests color and nuance where others might simply have forged ahead.
An almost Baroque like clarity peeps through the murky ruminations and wrongly harmonised hymn tunes though the abrupt ending is paradoxiacally less startling than had things resolved more neatly.
Allegro Peneroso by Babbitt bubbles over with chirpy melodic motifs ingeniously scattered around the entire keyboard and one is left wondering how all this warmth of spirit could possibly derive from a serial system of any kind.I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to hear the 2nd Piano Concerto which Nonken infectiously refers in her programme notes.
Finnissy's discursive North American Spirituals might've collapsed in less imaginative hands than Nonken but she invests color and nuance where others might simply have forged ahead.
An almost Baroque like clarity peeps through the murky ruminations and wrongly harmonised hymn tunes though the abrupt ending is paradoxiacally less startling than had things resolved more neatly.
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
From the introspective and at times tragic "Chelsea Square" of Jeff Nichols, the quirky, dancing impetuousness of Babbitt's "Allegro Penseroso" and the flashy virtuosity of Eckardt's "Echoes White Veil," this is a sublimely performed virtuosic feast for the ears. No pianist besides Nonken could bring out the sheer depth of emotion and spirituality contained within these extremely thorny works. Simply put, the pieces and the performance kick major ..., and the sound quality is amazing -- which is to be expected, since the producer is the Great Judith Sherman. This is music to be returned to, and returned to often, as I have done so myself.
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