Yep, great disc, “Working on Time” by the Maarten Altena Ensemble (see my post of yesterday), just posted my review. It’s great because, while elaborating on works of the past, from Machaut to Brian Eno / David Byrne via Mahler, the compositions never fall into pastiche, they are each a very original take on their respective source. Now I need to create those damn composer entries! And it’s not like I was done already with those of New Trombone Collective!
As I created an entry for the English composer Richard Ayres, I transferred from Amazon my two reviews of his music, from 2015, on Composer’s Voice and NMC. I’d been wanting to do that for a while – to complete the As. I’ve still got a way to go: I haven’t reviewed much Absil, Adam, Addison, Addy, Alfonso el Sabio, Maria de Alvear, the Andriessens, Anhalt, Antill, Arensky, Arutiunian, Asmus, Astier, Attaingnant, Aulin or even John Adams, and nothing yet I think of Albinoni, Albeniz, Alkan (although I have a lot on my shelves, especially the latter), but quite a few CDs from Adès, Alwyn, Artyomov and Auric… and a lot of Antheil!
Am listening to the piano sonatas of Czerny as I’m writing this – a little escapade from my contemporary Dutch composers. I knew already that I liked Czerny’s piano Etudes – not the dry studies in digital velocity that posterity has made them, but little self-contained musical gems. Given Czerny’s ties to Beethoven I expected his piano sonatas to be very Beethovenian indeed, but what strikes me on first hearing of the first sonata is how close to Schubert it sounds…