Ralph Shapey: Radical Traditionalism

Wanda Maximilien(piano) The Lexington Quartet of the Contemporary; Chamber Players of the University of Chicago; New York New Music Ensemble;Robert Black(piano) (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 1, 2007)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: New World Records
• ASIN: B000TKZFCY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #395,018 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. 21 Variations for Piano 28:20

2. String Quartet No. 6 11:56

3. String Quartet No. 7: I. Brillante 14:06

4. String Quartet No. 7: II. Scherzando, leggiero 2:53

5. String Quartet No. 7: III. Largo 4:00

6. String Quartet No. 7: IV. Passacaglia 14:10

Disc: 2

1. Fromm Variations (31 Variations for Piano):Chorale and Variations I-XXXI

2. Three for Six : Movement I 8:43

3. Three for Six : Movement II 5:10

4. Three for Six : Movement III 2:50

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars radical monotheist, November 25, 2007

By 

scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ralph Shapey: Radical Traditionalism (Audio CD)

this is a nice redone compilation within the highest points in Shapey's rather large body of works,He has been a neglected visionary,contributor to the paradigm of the post-war generation in music and not really working at promoting himself.He could have easily embarked on a world conducting career of contemporary works.

He wrote :Ten String Quartets:, his most innovative vary in content, ethical scope and technique. The Sixth and Seventh were from the middle period and have more structural dimensions to explore. The sound quality is from the old vinyls yet, I doubt if you will ever find another recording, perhaps that paradigm will change. The 'Sixth Quartet' has compact/impacted shapes to it,with a stasis beginning with upper registers double-stops,like fingernails-on-the-chalkboard, thorny,defiant,arrogant stretching the extremes of expression allowing,impounding timbres within durational frames of power,and the controlled freedom/unfreedom of each player is thrown together as soloists, subverting the quartet genre.EAch part has their own rhythms pitches and registers for some time before all this becomes diffuse and blurred with interloping "visits" into each other's regestral places. When he got to the Seventh Quartet, he thought the same creative agenda would work. This innovative period was roughly the mid Fifties to the mid Sixties where these ideas became developed. The Seventh Quartet is quite a bit longer and functions along its own discourse in fragments, particles of shapes and structures within duets and trios more bound to individual voices.It is less propulsive and seems to get mired into its own miniscule structures without the extrovertisms found in the earlier works.Shapey a violinist himself, knew the string timbre deeply,as Spinoza knew lens grinding.

Also here are his two primary works for piano solo; the :Fromm Variations: is a sprawling impressive work,and not merely by the pretensions of its 50 minute durational frame.It is dedicated to close friend philanthropist for the modern cause, Paul Fromm. Shapey has always been drawn to the discourse of brevity of form,sparce incapsulated gestures to counteract his more rotund arrogant overwhelming gestures.So you frequently find Variations form, various soli, and chamber genres has been the forms "materials" that animates his imagination as no other,not giving in to fad or fashion was his "ethics". He searched his entire existence for pathways that made music have meaning and power.Along the way,music he thought music should also ask questions on why it exists. He did so by writing music and finding the next thread of creativity.Early he was able to read the implications of within Varese and Wolpe, the spatial timbral, and pitch manipulations of both,utilzing antiphonal disbursements of instruments on the performing stage,as well also conducting all their primary works at some point. The :Fromm Variations: has a chorale that functions as the opaque theme in pitches;it relishes in rugged power at times,never mixing textures,(this would dilute the ongoing "time") of the work; So we get the extremes of brevity, to impacted(closed voicings) chordal displays, ponderous percussive-like in the middle register to airily pointillism of threadbare contrapuntal lines, thrown in all registers of the piano. He loved the roaring power of single tones in the lowest basso regions of the piano. The problem you may find with the work is does it overspend its length?, Mr. Black does a wonderful performative job making everything clear and having the courage to be the first to play the work.

The :21 Variations: has amore modest constitution.It is rather a shadow of the :Fromm:,and a more practicable repertoire piece for a pianist devoted to the modernist cause.It is a very different,with :dolce: more delicate gestures that pull back from the more "defiant" variations. This work inhabits a smaller more visible form and context than the Fromm. The :21 Variations: seems to work better in all respects for its relative modesty,we hear each variation as self-contained contributors to the totality and the materials simply do not overspend themselves. The agenda in much of Shapey's latter music Eighties and Nineties music is usually to deploy an idea inhabiting a large register,(Maestoso)here the entire piano in minor ninths, sevenths and octaves, from this timbre then the subsequent :readings: are reduced, parcelled down to brief fragments of pitch and shapes.

We also find a wonderful a chamber work,more opaque completely abstracted in the materials of timbre,the sustained sound mixed with melofic,strictly linera configurations, and again the chamber genre was Shapey's speciality,where he seemed to reserve his most innovative thoughts; Here within this chamber setting the manner in which he makes threadbard, anxiety-ridden lines work an independence for themselves,yet not compromising the uniqueness of the timbres deployed and yet contributing as soloists and within the context of the piece. He allows his melodic lines to sustain themselves, having the strength of conviction in how he manipulates his materials. There never seems to be an agenda for failure in Shapey's chamber works. He then expanded this paradigm to his larger oratorio-like works as The Covenant, and Praise, and his revised opera, :The Quatagonists:, on Moses.