Albany Records: Time Tracks

Download from iTunes Quantity in Basket: None JEANNE GOLAN Time Tracks TROY211 - Price: $16.99

A unique recital of old and new music.

This is such an unusual album, such an unusual concept filled with such imagination, I will quote the artist, Jeanne Golan, who currently teaches at Bard College to give you an idea of what this disc is about. "As a pianist who performs contemporary music and works directly with composers as colleagues and friends, I have become increasingly intrigued by the issues with which composers contend in the musical expression of their thoughts. In extending this approach to music of different generations, I have been inspired to discover the ways in which composers of traditional repertoire dealt with these same issues and ultimately employed compositional methods that also stretched the boundaries of what was considered possible to create a unique university in each piece. This approach has not only allowed me to view every piece as "contemporary," but has also affected my choices in programming. Searching for works that complement each other has repeatedly revealed kinships between composers and pieces that initially seemed unrelated. I have often found that composers, though from different eras and places, grapple with the same issues, often resolving them in similar ways. The primary issue behind the collection of piano works assembled on this disc is the structuring of time, hence the title Time Tracks. Its repertoire incorporates two extreme approaches to time: one the approach that transcends it, as seen in the works by Beethoven and Curran, the other that specifically defines it both rhythmically and historically, embodied by the works of Granados and Nancarrow. Both Beethoven and Curran are composers reckoning with mortality - Beethoven with his own, Curran with his recently deceased friend, Cornelius Cardew." Ms. Golan has rethought ways to program contemporary music and her ideas certainly work on this new recital disc.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, composer
Sonata in E Major, Op. 109
Jeanne Golan, piano

Cornelius Cardew, composer
Piano Album
Jeanne Golan, piano

Cornelius Cardew, composer
For Cornelius
Jeanne Golan, piano

Enrique Granados, composer
Two Goyesquas
Jeanne Golan, piano

Conlon Nancarrow, composer
Two Canons for Ursula
Jeanne Golan, piano

Review:

"Jeanne Golan's explanation of the title of this collection, Time Tracks- as relating to music as "the structuring of time" - is not particularly persuasive, but her program and the performances themselves add up to one of the nicest surprises of the season. In Beethoven's E Major Sonata, Op. 109, she allows the music to unfold in the most uncluttered, splendidly balanced way, making its points in human terms, including a hint of humor in the concluding variation movement, without rhetorical underscoring.It adds up to an imaginatively balanced recital in which Golan identifies persuasively with all the material. The recording itself is outstanding in its well-focused realism." (Stereo Review)

A unique recital of old and new music.

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