Coming November 15 – Ethan Iverson: Playfair Sonatas

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Oct 022024
 

Six new sonatas.

Six outstanding soloists – teaming up with multitalented composer-pianist Ethan Iverson.

From the press release:


Ethan Iverson Announces New Album: Playfair Sonatas

Cover art by Roz Chast

with Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet

Release Date on Urlicht AudioVisual: November 15, 2024

Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson will release his next album Playfair Sonatas digitally and as a 2-CD set on November 15, 2024 via the Urlicht AudioVisual label. Playfair Sonatas features six sonatas composed by Iverson for six different instruments and piano, and recorded by Iverson with some of today’s most vibrant classical performers – Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet. The album is bookended by a Fanfare and Recessional performed by the whole ensemble.

Playfair Sonatas was born in 2020 during the pandemic, when Iverson met curator, producer, and frequent commissioner of new work Piers Playfair for a summertime outdoor dinner. Like most musicians that year, Iverson had downsized and was concerned about making a baseline income. He had recently moved and rented a smaller, cheaper studio, and when Playfair asked if there was anything he could help with, Iverson replied, “Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months.” The two agreed that in exchange for six months of rent, Iverson would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation. 

Writing these Playfair Sonatas led Iverson to composing larger works, including his Piano Sonata, recently recorded as part of his album Technically Acceptable on the Blue Note label. Seth Colter Walls wrote of the piece in The New York Times, “Classical in conception… it also contains traces of crunchy harmonic modernism and the bumptious sounds of vintage American jazz styles.”

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas similarly showcase this signature approach. The sonatas intertwine 21st-century jazz gestures with the formal structures of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. While the outer movements are titled with traditional tempo indications (Allegro, Rondo, Scherzo, and similar), the middle movements of each work are dedicated to an artist whose work blended jazz and classical. 

These dedications came about late in the game,” says Iverson. “I had scrapped a previous Adagio for clarinet, and wrote a new middle movement I really liked. However, was this ‘oom-pah’ rhythm too much like one of Carla Bley’s amusing ‘music hall’ pieces? Well, what if I dedicated the movement to her? That would fix the issue of appropriation. As it turned out, Carla passed away the same day I finished ‘Music Hall’ and devised the ‘dedications’ stratagem. The other five salutations to Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Paul Desmond, Joe Wilder, and Roswell Rudd came easily, for they had been in the back of my mind the whole time.” 

Piers Playfair adds, “It’s cool that out of a Covid dinner we were able to put a project together that so encapsulates one of our joint core beliefs, that the divisions that divide music, such as jazz, classical, blues etc, into neat little boxes are really just names that people put on them and shouldn’t define the artists.” 

Ethan and Piers assembled an absolute dream team of soloists, each of who brought their A game to Oktaven Audio for two days of amazing and inspiring music-making,” says producer Gene Gaudette. “The recording sessions were spirited, crackling with energy, and seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. The Playfair Sonatas are such terrific music – engaging, witty, and still fresh even after multiple hearings. They will no doubt find not only a wide listening audience via this recording but surely be embraced by players looking for new, challenging, genre-crossing repertoire.”

• Read Ethan Iverson’s notes on each of the Playfair Sonatas, including the dedication movements, here.

• Alongside the album, Iverson will publish the scores for all of the Playfair Sonatas, making them available to interested musicians free of charge. 

• Listen to Movement II, “Music Hall (for Carla Bley)” from the Clarinet Sonata and follow along with the score:

• Playfair Sonatas are commissioned by Piers Playfair and 23Arts Initiative. 

• The album is released worldwide on Gene Gaudette’s Ulricht AudioVisual label.

About Ethan Iverson:

Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction.


Since leaving TBP, Iverson has released critically-acclaimed jazz albums on ECM and Blue Note, often accompanied by bonafide jazz stars such as Tom Harrell or Jack DeJohnette. Downbeat has called Iverson “A master of melody” while Hot House recently raved, “Known for his intellectual depth and adventurous musical spirit, Ethan Iverson has traversed the boundaries of jazz tradition while leaving an indelible mark on its evolution.” After witnessing a 2024 concert of standards spontaneously chosen by the audience, Stereophile wrote, “Iverson is a natural, consistent crowd-pleaser. For his entire career, he has been finding ways to be accessible while pushing the envelope.” 

Iverson holds down the piano chair in the critically acclaimed Billy Hart quartet and has recorded with other elder statesmen like Albert “Tootie” Heath and Ron Carter. In terms of performing classical music, Iverson has accompanied Mark Padmore in Schubert’s Winterreise and Johnny Gandelsman in the three Brahms Violin Sonatas.

On top of his activities as a pianist and composer, Iverson has an active career as a writer, publishing significant criticism in The Nation, JazzTimes, The New York Times, and the Culture Desk of The New Yorker. He also posts frequently on his Substack, Transitional Technology

About the Instrumentalists:


Miranda Cuckson, violin: www.mirandacuckson.com  


Makoto Nakura, marimba: www.makotonakura.com  


Carol McGonnell, clarinet: www.carolmcgonnell.com  
 

Mike Lormand, trombone: www.deviantseptet.com/mike-lormand   


Taimur Sullivan, saxophone: www.taimursullivan.com  


Tim Leopold, trumpet: www.mostlymodernfestival.org/tim-leopold-trumpet




Playfair Sonatas


Music by Ethan Iverson

Fanfare – The Ensemble
Violin Sonata – Miranda Cuckson, violin • Ethan Iverson, piano
Marimba Sonata – Makoto Nakura, marimba • Ethan Iverson, piano
Clarinet Sonata – Carol McGonnell, clarinet • Ethan Iverson, piano
Trombone Sonata – Mike Lormand, trombone • Ethan Iverson, piano
Alto Saxophone Sonata – Taimur Sullivan, saxophone • Ethan Iverson, piano
Trumpet Sonata – Tim Leopold, trumpet • Ethan Iverson, piano
Recessional – The Ensemble

Ulricht AudioVisual | Release Date: November 15, 2024



Recorded December 2 & 3, 2023 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Recording engineer: Ryan Streber
Piano technician: Shane Hoshino
Edited by Ryan Streber and Gene Gaudette
Produced by Gene Gaudette
Executive producer: Piers Playfair
Cover art: Roz Chast

 

Preorder Miranda Cuckson on Vinyl!

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Jun 052024
 

Preorder from Waterloo Records, Austin TX
Preorder from Everybody’s Records, Cincinnati OH
Preorder from The Vinyl Groove, Bedford OH
Preorder from Electric Fetus, Minneapolis MN
Preorder from Vintage Vinyl, Saint Louis MO
Preorder from Target.com
Preorder from Amazon
Preorder from ImportCDs.com
Preorder from Merchbar

“I have had the privilege and pleasure of working with Miranda Cuckson for over a decade, and take particular pride in her recordings for Urlicht AudioVisual. With the resurgence of the LP format, it is high time to showcase her exceptional insight and talent on vinyl.” – Gene Gaudette

Violinist Miranda Cuckson has achieved international recognition as America’s leading proponent of new music for the violin. Her career delighting audiences as soloist and collaborator in a wide range of music spans three decades, and her recordings for Urlicht AudioVisual, ECM Records, and Centaur have been received with consistently high critical praise.

This newest release from Urlicht AudioVisual marks Miranda’s LP debut, and features three works on two very distinctive LP sides.

Stewart Goodyear‘s “Solo; A Suite for Solo Violin”, commissioned for Miranda and debuted in 2022, comprises one side of the LP – five strongly contrasting movements in one engaging and delightful tonal-centric work drawing not only on on traditional classical forms but Caribbean-influenced melody and rhythm, reflecting Goodyear’s ancestral heritage.

The other side features two pivotal postwar works for solo violin: Iannis Xenakis‘s “Mikka S“, a breakthrough work with microtonal glissandi and dynamic voicings that places it among the most challenging in the violin repertoire, and Franco Donatoni‘s “Argot“, a work drawing on minimalism and late-20th-century European avant-garde styles, with moods that are at once playful and intense.

The unique jacket design showcases both sides of the LP with individual front covers.

This limited-edition release utilizes Direct Metal Mastering for maximum fidelity to the original high-definition sources and is pressed on 180-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by Precision Record Pressing, and includes an insert with complete liner notes and credits.

 

You can download a .pdf of the release sheet here.

New from Toblach Ausgabe: ‘Gesualdo Renaissance’

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Feb 022024
 

If you are a fan of Stravinsky, Varèse, and/or the Second Viennese school – Webern, Berg, and in particular Arnold Schoenberg – you likely recognize the name Robert Craft, a conductor best known as a champion of that esteemed group of composers. You may not be aware that he was also profoundly interested in renaissance- and baroque-era polyphony, particularly the music of Carlo Gesualdo.
Craft’s first pioneering recording of the Italian master’s madrigals, made before his long-term partnership with Columbia Masterworks, was made with a handful of Hollywood’s most gifted singers – including the young Marilyn Horne. The result of these independent studio sessions proved an important catalyst in the revival of interest in Gesualdo’s unique and revolutionary oeuvre, and a landmark recording at the dawn of “historically informed” early music performance practice.
Unavailable for over six decades, this recording has been restored and remastered by Urlicht AudioVisual and will be available on our sister label Toblach Ausgabe for streaming, sale on CD, and download in HD formats on February 18.
You can download the liner notes in .pdf here.

AVAILABLE NOW!
Kodály: Duo for Violin and Cello, Sonata for Solo Cello – Darvarova, Starker (UAV 5983)

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Kodály: Duo for Violin and Cello, Sonata for Solo Cello – Darvarova, Starker (UAV 5983)
Jul 072023
 
Shortly after our joint performances of the Kodály Duo in Sofia and in Varna, I was able to leave Bulgaria in a daring escape, made possible by an administrative mistake. The communist passport officials erroneously had granted me exit documents for traveling to Germany, but despite quickly realizing their mistake and attempting to call me back to their office, they were just a bit late in their timing, and I managed to slip out of the country. From Germany I easily made it to America, where I had been invited to teach at Indiana University, as one of Josef Gingold’s assistants. ”
Elmira Darvarova

Urlicht AudioVisual celebrates the countdown to the centenary of legendary cellist János Starker with the first in a series of releases, making available for the first time a live recording of Zoltán Kodály‘s formidable Duo for Violin and Cello featuring Starker with Bulgarian violinist Elmira Darvarova – a performance that took place days before her daring escape from behind the Iron Curtain in 1986.

This recording is coupled with a new remastering of Starker’s landmark 1950 recording of Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello, restored especially for this release.

The digital edition of this release is available for download exclusively through July from Toblach Ausgabe.

“As Louis Armstrong said, all music is folk music”

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May 312023
 
Ethan Iverson on Miranda Cuckson‘s new double CD/download “Világ”:
“Miranda Cuckson has always impressed with an effortless command of the hardest modern music. I first heard her on the 2014 album Melting the Darkness, which opens with the dumbfounding “Mikka S” by Iannis Xenakis. It’s an incredibly difficult piece, but Cuckson sounds like she’s crooning a blues lullaby. … Is [Franco Donatoni‘s ‘Argot’] really folk music, you ask? Yes it is, at least in the hands of Miranda Cuckson, who plays the Donatoni as if it was written for her. As Louis Armstrong said, all music is folk music. … Less expected is Stewart Goodyear’s contribution. “Solo” from 2022 is downright down-home, a fiddler in a pub offering tales of a bygone age. I am utterly taken with Goodyear’s harmonic conception. (I had heard Goodyear’s name as a concert pianist, but had no idea he was this kind of composer.)”
– Ethan Iverson, Transitional Technology
Miranda’s new recording, Világ, is available for HD streaming and download, and as a double-CD set.

“extraordinary playing”

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May 162023
 
\”It’s also illuminating, not only for its compositional diversity but for Cuckson’s extraordinary playing. In featuring violin alone, her virtuosity, dexterity, and command of intonation and phrasing are on full display, and the performances mesmerize. … Cuckson’s playing is always compelling and never less than transfixing. Anyone who might think nearly 100 minutes of unaccompanied violin might be less than engaging will be otherwise enlightened by Világ. If anything, hearing her performing alone allows for an enhanced appreciation of her singular artistry.”
Textura

Available for streaming, for download, and on CD!

Praise for Parnassus’ Reissue of Haendel and Hassid

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Apr 202023
 

Urlicht AudioVisual’s remastering for Parnassus Records of recordings by Josef Hassid (his entire recorded legacy) and Ida Haendel (in some of her first recordings) receives strong praise in the June issue of Gramophone:

“Finally, a disc of encores recorded by then-young Polish-Jewish violinists Josef Hassid and Ida Haendel, in 1940 and 1948-53, sympathetically accompanied by Gerald Moore. Hassid, described by Moore as ‘the greatest instrumental genius I’ve ever partnered‘, plays with a sure technique and gleaming tone a range of pieces including by Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Kreisler and Achron. Sadly his career abruptly collapsed the following year, as he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Handel, almost as impressive a player, offers a more adventurous mix, including a : piece by Tartini and contemporary works by Bartók and Copland.
The transfers are smooth and one quickly adjusts to the mono sound.
Parnassus PACL 95011 ****
– Daniel Jaffé, Gramophone

Click here to stream, download, or order in CD format!

Remastering Toscha

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Jan 292023
 

“It is simply amazing that someone with Tosha Seidel’s enormous talent should have died at the age of sixty-three in complete obscurity after a career that took him all over the world starting at the age of sixteen. Fortunately, this Parnassus release begins to address the neglect the Ukrainian Jewish virtuoso has endured for such a long time.” — Rafael de Acha, All About the Arts

“The lack of [Toscha Seidel’s] recordings in the catalogue is simply baffling and that’s where this succinct 79-minute selection comes in handy. The recordings date from 1918 to 1929 with the exception of the 1945 Chausson. They reveal his vibrant tone and sensual aura as well as his communicative slides (in Achron’s Hebrew Melody). His Kreisler is manly, irreproachably self-confident and oozes tonal lustre and allure, elastically phrased (Schön Rosmarin), vibrantly vibrated and fulsome, with gorgeous double stops (Ave Maria). These are electrically recorded and amongst the best sounding Seidel recordings, revealing the full panoply of his variegated tonal resources. Thereafter there is a long series of predominantly acoustic discs. … If you need a standout piece, amongst many standouts, try Mischa Elman’s arrangement of Ständchen where Seidel’s lustrous, singing tone is under perfect control and beautifully equalized throughout the scale; one of the great violin records. But so many Seidel records are like that; memorable, beautiful and unique in depth of tonal beauty. … This disc fulfils a necessary gap admirably, restoring Seidel’s recordings – but by no means all his recordings – in fine style.” – Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb

Leslie Gerber’s enterprising Parnassus Records already was among my favorite historic reissue labels well before Leslie teamed up with my friends at Alto Distribution to make his recordings more easily obtainable. When they approached us about the possibility of doing some audio restoration work involving recording of the great Toscha Seidel, we immediately agreed to undertake the work.

We were fortunate to collaborate with veteran collector Raymond Glaspole, who transferred a number of Seidel 78s (from his own collection, in excellent condition) to digital format; the remaining sources were transferred at Urlicht AudioVisual, on loan from other collectors. The electrical studio recordings needed little  work, but some of the acoustic 78s presented challenges, yet yielded better results than we had anticipated, with a much lower noise level that sacrifices none of Seidel’s signature tone. Though Chausson’s Poème derives from a broadcast transcription with somewhat limited frequency response and distant orchestral miking, the result of restoration reveals a passionate performance with two artists at their expressive finest.

Toscha Seidel – Rare and Newly Remastered” is available now. You can find links for streaming and CD purchase here.

Best of the New York Piano Quartet

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Apr 262021
 
Best of the New York Piano Quartet front cover UAV-4999
“The interpretation[s] by the New York Piano Quartet can only be described as 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠.” – Joachim Wagner, amazon.de
 
“𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 … they project… diverse styles… with understanding and finesse.” – MusicWeb
 
“[𝐔]𝐥𝐭𝐫𝐚-𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝, 𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐱 … the players dig into the music with alacrity, the strings often employing juicy vibrato and slides to emphasise the composers’ expressive points. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝.” – Gramophone
 
Now available through online and select physical retailers as well as all major digital streaming and download platforms.

In search of the “authentic” Mahler style…

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May 212020
 

This is cross-posted from Synaphaï.


A century ago, Ludwig van Beethoven was by near-universal consensus the most admired composer among lovers and performers of classical music; at the time, little if any consideration was given to the issue of “authentic” performance practice. Keyboard instruments of Beethoven’s era had for the most part been discarded in favor of what we know as the modern piano; orchestral wind, brass, and percussion instruments were similarly superseded by more evolved models. Conductors of the era, including Gustav Mahler, were prone to adjust orchestration to compensate for forces larger and quite different in sound than those of Beethoven’s era.

Today, there is a strong argument that Mahler occupies the pedestal that had been held by Beethoven during the transition from the 19th to 20th centuries, when his great champions included names such as von Bulow, Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Weingartner, Toscanini — and, of course, Mahler himself. Likewise, there has been enormous change in orchestral instruments of every family, the biggest being the replacement of gut with metal in the string section, along with technical refinements to wind, brass, and particularly percussion instruments. Today’s orchestra sounds far different than that of Mahler’s era.

The fact that a small but artistically signifiant number of recordings of Mahler’s music were made during the acoustic and “shellac” (electrical pre-LP) recording eras — including several by artists who worked closely with Mahler — gives modern listeners the opportunity to hear these works as they had been sung and played during an era when, contrary to earlier assumptions, their reputation and popularity were on the rise until political and social upheaval – and war – swept Europe in the 1930s.

These early studio recordings, naturally, have given rise to speculation about whether or not it is possible to determine an “authentic” performance style for Mahler.

Several years ago, when I produced “The Music of Gustav Mahler; Issued 78s, 1903-1940” — the first comprehensive anthology of every commercially-issued Mahler 78s released between 1903 and 1940 and listed in Peter Fülöp’s exhausive Mahler discography — my intent was not only to present these recordings in the context of the era in which they were issued and in the best sound possible, but to also offer informed insight into historical, technical, and artistic facts surrounding these recordings in the form of thorough liner notes authored by Sybille Werner.

The set and the accompanying notes were not conceived to answer questions about “authentic” Mahler performance practice — nor for that matter do I believe an answer to the question exists, though one can discern that there were significant artistic and interpretive characteristics unique to the era, particularly in instrumental playing.   Additionally, one cannot ignore overall differences among authoritative studio recordings made by Mahler’s conducting colleagues and protégés: Bruno Walter, Willem Mengelberg, and Oskar Fried. Likewise, the voices of Leopold Demuth, Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, and Sara Charles-Cahier, three singers who had sung under Mahler’s direction, shed light not only to the composer’s music but the vocal style and tradition of Mahler’s world, along with the many other singers represented in the set.

I have in recent months received several inquiries about the future availability of the set. I have completed most of the technical work on a follow-up set that will include the remaining 78s and several important recordings issued during the early LP era, but good quality copies of two discs have proven elusive. I expect this situation to be resolved in the next few months, and am speaking with my strategic partners about a short run of the original set once the second volume is completed. 

The original run of “The Music of Gustav Mahler; Issued 78s, 1903-1940” — 1000 copies — was warmly received by the press, and my distributors sold out of the set within less than five weeks of its release date. Used copies that turn up on eBay and Amazon command insanely high prices.

Releasing the set as a digital item through online retailers has proven problematic, despite the dogged efforts of my worldwide distributor, Alto Distribution, and my outstanding digital aggregator, Entertainment One.

Some of the major players in digital music for direct sale and download, most notably iTunes, have introduced logistical obstacles that make it next to impossible to make sets with a large number of tracks available for download or streaming.

As a result, I have decided to make the entire set available through a small-scale strategic partner for purchase in lossless download formats: Apple Lossless for iTunes users and flac for most other listeners.

The original English-language liner notes and all German texts with English translations are included in .pdf format.

You can download the entire package here.

You can also stream the set if you are a subscriber to Qobuz

I will leave any conclusions concerning Mahler’s “authentic” style to you, the listener.