ROGER SMALLEY (b.1943): Piano Quintet, Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, String Quartet No. 2.

Catalogue Number: 11K102

Label: Melba

Reference: MR 301112

Format: CD

Price: $16.98

No Longer Available

Description: These invigorating and original chamber works ingeniously incorporate serial techniques and an advanced harmonic vocbulary in music that remains throughout entirely accessible and full of excitement and emotion. The use of fragments of Romantic motifs (from Chopin mazurkas) as raw material in two of the three provides a ready source of tonal centers and the basis of variation structures (both of which are important here), but it seems mainly to be the works' vitality and ingeniously discursive working of the material that contributes to the sheer pleasure of listening to them. The quintet begins with a lively overture which sets up a tonal context fully explored in the last movement chaconne, while the more fragmentary second movement establishes the piece as contemporary, no neo-romantic throwback. The first movement of the horn trio is also a vigorous allegro, largely atonal, which sets the stage for a fine and varied set of variations at the heart of the work. The quartet begins in an atmosphere of somber ambiguity, but resolves into the most classical structure of the three, again incorporating Romantic material as a thematic basis for a work not dissimilar from Shostakovich in the overall treatment of the ensemble. Australian String Quartet, Roger Smalley (piano), Darryl Poulsen (horn), Paul Wright (violin).

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