Officium Novum
By Stephen Eddins
More than 15 years separate the release of Jan Garbarek's best-selling album Officium from his Officium Novum. The newer release, like the original, features Garbarek on soprano and tenor saxophones and the male vocal quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble. In both albums, Garbarek takes preexisting vocal pieces and embroiders them with his soulful obbligato contributions. The chaste austerity of the men's voices and the reedy plaintiveness of the saxophone make for a surprisingly effective pairing. Garbarek and the singers manage to merge two very different musical worlds without compromising the integrity of either, and that is part of what gives these albums such an impact. The first album used primarily Medieval and Renaissance material -- chants, motets, and liturgical song -- while this second mostly uses more recent source material, primarily from Eastern Europe. In addition to several medieval sources, included are works by early 20th century Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer Komitas; Nikolai N. Kedrov, a Russian composer of the same era; mid-20th century Greek composer Giorgios Sefaris; Estonian Arvo Pärt; and several original pieces by Garbarek himself. Like the first album, this one is suffused with a sense of distant mystery and a profound, powerful melancholy that is given voice with intense feeling. The sound again is spacious and warmly resonant, with an earthy, enveloping ambience. This album will be a must-have for anyone who loved the first one, and it should appeal to any listener with an affinity for meditative Eastern European spirituality, especially when tied to contemporary expressivity and stylistic freedom.
Tracks:
1. Ov zamranali (Armenian traditional/ Komitas, Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
2. Svjete tihij (Byantine chant, Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
3. Allting finns (Jan Garbarek)
4. Litany (Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
5. Surp (Armenian traditional / Komitas, Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
6. Most Holy Mother Of God (Arvo Part)
7. Tres morillas m'enamoran (Spanish anonymous/Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
8. Sirt im sasani (Komitas, Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
9. Hays hark (Armenian traditional/ Komitas, Hilliard Ensemble/Jan Garbarek)
10. Alleluia, Nativitas (Perotin. Hilliard Ensemble / Jan Garbarek)
11. We are the stars (Jan Garbarek)
Vladimir Horowitz
Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon - 6 CD's
By Doug - Haydn Fan VINE VOICE
For reasons perhaps reflecting what may very well be a coming collapse of classical music pricing and distribution, bargains of an almost too good to be true nature continue to emerge on Amazon. This certainly is one! With the already very reasonable price slashed by half, you can now purchase all six Horowitz discs making up his recordings for DG for a little over twenty-five dollars. It's a buyer's market!
This set includes the famous Moscow Concert, a number of selections of pieces Horowtiz did very well, including Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, Scarlatti, and Scriabin, and even includes a Mozart Concerto, with large-scaled backing by Giulini. By this time in his career Horowitz plays more reflectively; the huge passionate outbursts of his salad days, with thunderous dynamics and blazing tempos are not the main attraction. One should absolutely not expect the reincarnation of, say, live concerts with Horowitz and Toscanini! Instead, perhaps channeling late Liszt, Horowitz seems at his best here when playing music requiring reflection and poetry.
Of course, this IS still Horowitz the virtouso - despite his age at the time of these recordings, around eighty - there's still plenty of pyrotechnics, though I find them more careful, and with a few bald spots showing through when he strives for more full sonorites and explosions. Opinions differ on the DG sound - Horowitz apparently never made life easy for the engineers, and there is some variance here, with some of the results not at all the equal of the best modern recordings.
If you don't yet have the Cd of the legendary return to Moscow Concert, or any of Horowitz's other late DGs, this is a great chance to hear them at an extremely modest cost.
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