Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran :: Time Tracks

Admirable playing of an odd mix of music

Rachel Abbinanti (tusai1@aol.com) | Chicago | 05/28/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Some programming courage was required for this disk,including this odd mix of Beethoven,Granados and Cardew all under one roof. Golan's playing is admirable and it's a shame she doesn't record more. There is no shortage of music. Cardew(who died mysteriosly in a road accident in December 1981) had an intimate realtionship with the piano,he played and recorded frequently himself. These pieces here are excerpts from his fascinating 1973 "Piano Album" a piece of conceptual subversion intended as materials to be played at political functions rallies,mass meetings and "duus" or parties.Cardew limited his imagery to Chinese and Irish revolutionary material to either arrange or impart original commentary. It is indeed a revolutionary idea in music to create in this way."Father Murphy" refers to a priest when the French occupied Ireland around 1789,he was a sympathizer and Cardew has a simple B-minor melody that is put through one single virtuosic variation of broken triadic triplets. "The Croppy Boy" refers to the young Irish revolutionists who closely cropped their hair,as a symbol of their rebellion,not unlike the spiked multi-colours today,here the music has gorgeous rolling chords from the lower depths,where the melody slowly emerges from these thick blankets of sound. These pieces are like miniature tone poems. Golan's Beethoven is well refined, and again it is odd to have this mix."For Cornelius" again was a in memorium piece by Alvin Curran, an American now living in Italy. This is Satie-like,almost as if Curran had lived in the north of London for a while to absorb the strong influence of Satie and Morton Feldman,prevalent amongst British composers."