Genre : Classical
Catalogue: Phasma-Music 086
UPC: 731093480676
recording and editing: Andrei Lifenco
mastering: Andrei Lifenco
recording place: Life.N.Co Records, Chisinau, Moldova
recorded in 2024
graphic design: Michail Travlos
production management: Iwona Glinka
front cover: Digital Art by Michail Travlos
premiere: May 11, 2024
TATIANA COSTIUC soprano
ANDREI OTEAN baritone
MIHAIL AGAFITA conductor
THE SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA OF THE NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC
„SERGHEI LUNCHEVICI” OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
The Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmonic „SERGHEI LUNCHEVICI” of the Republic of Moldova under Mihail Agafita presents the new album CHISINAU 4. The outstanding album includes 6 world premiere recordings by six contemporary composers: Scott Brickman, James Danly, Brian Field, Kaori Nakano, Alan Terricciano and Eriko Yamaki
Product details
Scott Brickman
01. Krusts for orchestra [09:47]
James Danly
02. Reverie for string orchestra [07:03]
Brian Field
Cançons d’amor for voice & orchestra
03. I. Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa [03:46]
04. II. Silueta [04:43]
05. III. Mirall [04:22]
06. IV. Gessamí [05:08]
Kaori Nakano
07. The girl's blue and yellow pendant for string orchestra [06:00]
Alan Terricciano
08. Masque for baritone and orchestra [27:58]
Eriko Yamaki
Prosperity for string orchestra
09. Wish [03:43]
10. Precious [02:14]
Total time: [75:08]
Krusts for orchestra, by Scott Brickman.
“The Cross” is based both on the Bach chorale “Herzlich tut mir verlangen”, and the chorale prelude of the same name by one of his last pupils, Johann Muthel (1728-1788). Muthel moved from Leipzig, Germany to Riga, Latvia, where he was the organist at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. St. Peter’s Church is still one of the biggest Churches in Latvia, and organ concerts are often given there. I was inspired both by my visits to the Church, the concerts I heard there, and by the line of the Chorale - an angel comes down, and comforts the woman: "Look, the tomb has been emptied, the Lord risen from the dead". Hallelujah!.
Scott Brickman (born 1963, Chicago, USA), is passionate about his Latvian and Polish ancestry, Catholic and Jewish religions, Sports, and spending time with his three grandchildren. He is Professor of Music and Pedagogy at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, where he has taught since 1997.
Reverie for string orchestra, by James Danly. The first eight measures came to the composer in a dream. He wrote down the phrase the next morning and used it as the basis of his composition. A repeated note gives rise to a certain earnestness in the melody, which alternates with more lyrical interludes. A change of mood and a brief, lighthearted waltz round off this short piece.
James Danly studied with Alan Stout and David McKay. He has composed more than three hundred works in a variety of styles and genres. He says of his works, "I try to tell a story through a natural progression of contrasting moods and feelings. The story should not only be fresh but have character as well."
Cançons d’amor for voice & orchestra, by Brian Field
These love songs, based upon the verse of contemporary Catalonian poet Carles Duarte i Montserrat, are subtle, quiet and fragile works that explore the quiet – and private – intensity of love, and the metaphysical mysteries of that love.
Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa (We dress our nakedness with lips) celebrates the strength of desire in us, the beauty of the skin when we love, the joy of existing when we feel the light of life in the eyes and the lips of our beloved. Is a text on a sensuality born within us from distant generations.
Silueta (Silhouette) reflects upon the mystery of the other when we love. In loving, we break borders between us, but in doing this we reflect, contemplate and question who we are. The new and decisive link we build with our beloved moves us to rethink identity.
Mirall (Mirror) is a fragile meditation on love and memory. Through the mirror, we see our face in the present and reflections of ourselves throughout time—driving us to remember the connections to people and places we have loved. As the work concludes, we feel the night within ourselves, recognizing in our heartbeat those heartbeats of people who remain alive if only because they live in our memories.
Gessamí (Jasmine) is a love song written to celebrate the intersection of memory and emotions deeply interlinked through shared dreams and physical intimacy. Music, flowers, the sea or the evening are landscapes where the ephemeral and eternal coexist.
Brian Field’s music is an eclectic fusion of lyricism and driving rhythm that brings together elements of post-romanticism, minimalism and jazz. Mr. Field’s compositions include music for television and stage; solo acoustic, chamber, ballet, choral, electroacoustic and orchestral works. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and internationally. More at: www.brianfield.com
Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa
Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa
i de tendresa els dits
i acaronant-nos
dibuixem dins la llum
atles de somnis.
De cada instant,
de cada gest de l’aire,
de cada moviment del mar,
en fem una mirada commoguda.
Ens convoquem
des de la pell,
des de la veu llunyana del passat
a noves geografi es.
La vida ens creix als ulls,
entre el desig i l’ombra del desig.
Silueta
Respira el dia darrere la persiana,
s’esmuny tènue la llum per totes les escletxes,
perfi la la silueta del teu cos dins la penombra.
Sento sense veure’ls el tacte dels teus ulls,
com si la llum ens allunyés,
com si et creés d’imaginar-te,
com si la fosca de la cambra em fos refugi
de la inquietud de la presència.
Ens separen uns passos no donats,
mirades, pells
escrites per records i somnis.
Qui ets? Qui sóc?
Potser només l’espera,
potser aquest fràgil silenci que ens uneix.
Mirall
El silenci és una porta que travesses sense sortir de tu;
en fas un mirall des d’on reprendre els laberints,
els continents de la memòria, l’ambre del temps
les illes dels records que ressorgeixen de la boira
que a poc a poc va embolcallant els dies del passat.
T’aculls al blau, als ulls que rellegeixes
per descobrir dins seu paisatges de la llum,
el vol del vent damunt dels cims glaçats,
la mà gemada del verd damunt les valls,
la pell del mar vestint la teva pell.
Tot tu ja nit,
sents el batec dins teu d’un cor llunyà.
Gessamí
Vivim per a la pell
i el somni.
La veu del violí,
el so de la claror dins l’aigua.
El riu et duu
l’aroma del jardí.
Els pètals de les mans
i el gessamí,
el bes de tant de blau,
la llum de cada gest,
llavors d’una bellesa
escrita a l’ara,
a cada fl or
que en néixer
ja es marceix
per tornar a ser.
Sagna l’absència,
ferida encesa
que travessa els dies.
La seda, el nacre,
l’efímer i l’etern
en un instant,
el cant de la mirada
que ara enyores,
els noms de la memòria.
El mar, la nit.
En el silenci
des del teu record.
We dress our lips naked
We dress our nakedness with lips
and with tenderness our fi ngers
and caressing us
we draw inside the light
atlas of dreams.
From every moment,
of each gesture of the air,
of every movement of the sea,
we create a moved look.
We summoned ourselves
from the skin,
from the distant voice of the past
to new geographies.
Life grows in our eyes,
between desire and the shadow of desire.
Silhouette
Breathe the day behind the blind,
the light fades through all the cracks,
outlining the silhouette of your body in the darkness.
I feel without seeing the touch of your eyes,
as if the light were taking us away,
as if I created you by imagining you,
as if the darkness of the room were my refuge
of the restlessness of your presence.
A few ungiven steps separate us,
looks, skins
written for memories and dreams.
Who are you? Who I am?
Perhaps it is just the waiting,
Perhaps it is this fragile silence that unites us.
Mirror
Silence is a door you walk through without leaving yourself;
you make it a mirror from which to retake the mazes,
the continents of memory, the amber of time
the islands of memories resurfacing from the fog
which is slowly enveloping the days of the past.
You take refuge in the blue, in the eyes that you reread
to discover inside them landscapes of light,
the fl ight of the wind over the icy peaks,
the hand refl ected by the green over the valleys,
the skin of the sea dressing your skin.
It’s all night,
you feel the beat inside you from a distant heart.
Jasmine
We live for the skin
and the dream.
The voice of the violin,
the sound of clarity within the water.
The river takes you
the scent of the garden.
The petals of the hands
and the jasmine,
the kiss so blue,
the light of each gesture,
then of a beauty
written in the now,
to each fl ower
that at birth
already withered
to rebirth.
The absence bleeds,
burning wound
that goes through the days.
Silk, mother-of-pearl,
the ephemeral and the eternal
in an instant,
the song of the gaze
that you now long for,
the names of memory.
The sea, the night.
In the silence
from your memory.
The girl's blue and yellow pendant for string orchestra, by Kaori Nakano
Who can forget what happened in Ukraine on February 24, 2022?
A year later it's still going. A video of a girl reporting on a destroyed city has touched my heart.
Armed with gigantic explosive weapons and theoretically possessing delusions of persecution to protect himself, he stands in the way of the girl. War always hurts the most vulnerable children, old people and women. What will this war engrave on her mind? A pendant on her chest that pulsates with the beat of her heart tells us.
Kaori Nakano is a Japan-based composer, arranger, jazz pianist and educator. She has taught at Yamaha Music School for 30 years. Her works were selected in 2021 and 2022 at the Jazz New Music Reading Session of the Midwest Clinic, America's largest music education society. She has also been selected as a Semi-Finalist three times in the International Song Writing Competition. She has published her scores by Universal Edition in Vienna, TUX People's Music in the US and in Japan. More at : https://kaori-nakano.jimdosite.com/
Masque for baritone and orchestra, by Alan Terricciano.
Prologue
Blue
Purple
Green
Orange
White
Violet
Black (coda)
Masque originated as a collaborative project with the University of California, Irvine Music and Dance departments, artistic director Donald McKayle, conductor Stephen Tucker, baritone, Robin Buck and myself as the composer. We developed the idea of reimagining Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of Red Death, as an actual masque - a work that combines music, theater and dance. For the score, I created a song cycle for baritone and orchestra using Poe's poetry. Each poetic excerpt references one of the seven colors of the rooms in the story. The prologue uses text from the story itself while the seven sections take us through the rooms. The only color not referenced in Poe's work was blue, so the text for the first room, Blue, was my adaptation of the opening verse of the poem, The Conqueror Worm. Purple draws from The Raven, Green draws from The Haunted Palace, Orange draws from Israfel, White draws from The Sleeper, Violet draws from The City in the Sea, and the final room, Black, draws from The Haunted Palace again.
Now in his 30th year on the University of California, Irvine faculty, Alan Terricciano is a Professor of Dance and an Associate Dean for the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Educated at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music, Alan is professionally active as a composer for choreography, the theater and the concert hall, having created over 150 original scores over his professional career. Collaborators have included the Minnesota Orchestra, Northwestern University’s New Music Ensemble, the New Swan Shakespeare Festival and choreographers including Colin Connor, David Grenke, Liz Lerman, Donald McKayle, Doug Nielson, and Jeff Slayton. He has been a proud partner with Phasma-Music since 2017.
Masque of the Red Death 1
Introduction
(Words in apostrophes have their tenses changed, or have been changed to first-person)
The external world ‘can’ take care of itself. In the meantime it ‘is’ folly to grieve,
or to think. ‘I’ have provided all the appliances of pleasure. …Buffoons,
…improvisatori, …ballet-dancers, …musicians. There ‘is’ beauty; there ‘is’
wine. All these and security ‘are’ within. Without …the “Red Death.”
Adapted from E A Poe - The Masque of the Red Death
Blue
Lo! ‘tis a gala night
Within these blue-banked walls!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In moon-spun silk, amid these azure halls,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of laughs and cheers,
While the orchestra breathes lustfully
The music of the spheres.
Terricciano - Parody of The Conqueror Worm, Opening Stanza
(original text from Conqueror Worm)
Lo! ‘tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
E A Poe - From The Conqueror Worm, Opening Stanza
Purple
And the silken sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me–filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating;
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door–
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more.”
E A Poe - From The Raven, Stanza III
Masque of the Red Death 2
Green
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace–
Radiant Palace–reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion–
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
E A Poe - From The Haunted Palace, Opening Stanza
Orange
And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfel’s fire
Is owing to the lyre
By which he sits and sings–
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings
E A Poe - From Israfel, Stanza III
White
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.…
E A Poe - From The Sleeper, Opening Stanza
Masque of the Red Death 3
Violet
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently–
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free–
Up domes–up spires–up kingly halls–
Up fanes–up Babylon-like walls–
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers–
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
E A Poe - From The City in the Sea, Stanza II
Black
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate… (from Stanza V)
And travelers now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rushed out forever
And laugh–but smile no more. (from Stanza VI)
E A Poe - From The Haunted Palace, Stanza’s V and VI
Prosperity for string orchestra, by Eriko Yamaki. This composition comprises two sections: the first titled "Wishes" and the second titled "Precious." Both pieces were composed with heartfelt prayers for the future peace of your most cherished and beloved ones, especially for children.
Eriko Yamaki, composition, jazz piano, started playing piano at age 4 and flute when she was 11. After graduating from Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, she attended Berklee College of Music where she received a degree in Jazz Composition and studied piano. After Berklee, she played in the Boston area with the Sonny Watson Quintet and East West Quartet. In 2016, after a somewhat extended hiatus, Eriko resumed writing and performing with the jazz trio “TRIchrO,” whose first CD “Gravity” was released in 2018. Eriko has also been composing classical pieces which have achieved recognition in various composition competitions and a few albums were released from Naxos Records. More at: erikoyamaki.com
