Search - Rotterdam Philharmonic Chamber Players :: Chamber Music of Kerry Turner

Over the past 10 years, several CD recordings of the chamber works of Kerry Turner have been released. The programs for these projects had been more or less comprised of works composed around the same periods of time. His prodigious output over the past two decades makes it somewhat simple, generally speaking, to categorize Mr. Turner s works into several different styles. The works from the late nineteen-eighties combine an interesting Shostokovitch-like sound to Turner s already developing Western-American style. The Sonata for Horn and Strings on this album provides a very good example of this. As Kerry Turner performed increasingly frequently and further abroad with the renowned American Horn Quartet, it became clear to him that audiences around the world desired to hear more of the Western-American sound. It is, after all, an intrinsic and colorful style, unique to the United States. The development of this particular sound is largely due, of course, to the soundtracks of the great American Western films seen around the world. The Quartet Number 3 on this CD is quite possibly the best example of Turner s compositional style during this period in the mid-nineties. As the millennium approached, and Kerry began to look toward his 40th birthday, he started to seek a deeper level at which to express himself. A keen interest in counterpoint and a deep insight into the works of Arnold Schoenberg exuded a strong influence on his compositional technique and style. Although two works on this CD, Quarter-After-Four and Rhapsody for Nine Instruments are perhaps not the best examples of the music from this particular period of Turner s opus, the influences of counterpoint and Schoenberg are nevertheless evident. There has been, however, one element in Turner s works that has prevailed throughout all his musical development periods: his fascination with history and historical events. So it is not surprising to find on this album the Berceuse for the Mary Rose, commiss