Month: March 2021

CD Review, early music, File Under?

2021 – the Josquin Year (CD Review)

Josquin: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie – Missa D’ung aultre amer – Missa Faysant regretz

Tallis Scholars

Gimell Records

 

Josquin Motets and Mass Movements

Brabant Ensemble

Hyperion Records

 

The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez

Stile Antico

Decca Classics

 

While scholarly consensus on Josquin’s birthdate has moved around over time (current estimates are around 1450), his death was in 1521, five hundred years ago. To mark this anniversary, three of the best ensembles singing early music have released recordings devoted to the composer’s works. 

 

The Tallis Scholars began their Josquin masses recording project decades ago, and this program of Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, Missa D’ung aultre amer, and Missa Faysant regretz completes their cycle of these totemic works with a ninth recording (on a previous CD, they even included a mass that may be by Bauldewyn or Josquin, just to be safe). They have saved some of the best works for last. Missa Hercules Dux Ferrari is the first known soggetto cavato mass, mapping syllables of the name of its dedicatee, Duke Ercole I D’este of Ferrara, onto solfege syllables. The motive is repeated a number of times, often in the texturally prominent tenor voice, commemorating the dedicatee resplendently and demonstrating a technique that would be taken up by a number of composers. Missa D’ung aultre amer is an earlier and relatively compact work, with more syllabic and homophonic writing than one often finds in Josquin. It uses a rondeau quatrain by Johannes Ockeghem as its principal building blocks. Unusual yes, but also fascinating and fetching. Missa Faysant regretz is based on a three-part rondeau that is either by Gille Binchois or Walter Frye. The mass is saturated with a four-note motive that appears more than 200 times; it is divided up among all of the voices and appears in various rhythmic guises. Faysant regretz rivals Missa Hercules in compositional virtuosity. While retaining a number of longtime personnel, the Tallis Scholars sound vivacious and well-balanced from sonorous basses to shimmering upper sopranos. They keep a crisp pacing throughout, and the rhythmic verve they demonstrate serves to clearly delineate the counterpoint in all three masses.

 

A collection of motets and mass movements are featured on the Brabant Ensemble’s recording. Ricocheting entrances contrast sumptuous, widely spaced verticals in O Bone et dulcissime Jesu. Pungent dissonances and imitative counterpoint enliven a setting of the Stabat Mater. The included mass movements, rather than being part of an Ordinary cycle, are freestanding. The Gloria de beata virgine and the Sanctus and Benedictus de Passione are easily as musically substantial as sections of complete mass settings and serve as a reminder that, irrespective of the way in which Renaissance music is often presented in concert and on disc, service music in practice was far from a tradition of monolithic cycles. The Brabant Ensemble and Stile Antico share some personnel, notably Helen, Kate, and Emma Ashby in the soprano and alto sections. The singers in both groups create a warm and impressively blended sound.

 

Stile Antico’s first Decca CD features a premiere recording of the beautiful chanson Vivrai je toujours. The rest of their selections include some “greatest hits” – Ave Maria Virgo Serena, Inviolate, integra, et casta es, Salve Regina, and a charming but slightly incongruous inclusion of El Grillo. The centerpiece is Missa Pange Lingua, a paraphrase mass from late in Josquin’s career that employs one of the central hymns of the Catholic liturgy. Stile Antico takes a spacious approach to the mass, with relaxed tempos and impressive delineation of the pervasive appearances of the hymn that define much of the mass. Two laments on the death of Josquin, Dum vastos Adriae fluctus by Jacquet De Mantua and O mors inevitabilis by Hieronymus Vinders, provide a fitting and stirring conclusion to this compelling recording. If asked to choose I would say: get all three. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Video, Violin

Daniel Corral – Hodad



The March 2021 offering from Music for Your Inbox is Hodad, a new video by Daniel Corral performed by violinist Myra Hinrichs. This work audaciously combines the Southern California surf with a solo violin played on the beach to create a unique collaboration between artist and nature. The program notes state: “At the beach, a violinist watches the waves roll in and out. The ocean becomes a score. Spot a wave in the distance. The wave crests; the wave washes up on the shore; the wave retracts and disappears into the sea. Play according to the wave’s movements.” The result is ostensibly a relaxing 21 minute interlude on a sunny beach, but there are surprising musical insights as well.

Nature has historically been a subject for emulation in music and there are many examples from contemporary composition: Olivier Messiaen used birdsong extensively in his Catalogue d’oiseaux, The Wind in High Places, by John Luther Adams perfectly captures the chilly peaks of Alaska, River of 1000 Streams by Daniel Lentz flows powerfully down to the sea and the music of Jeffrey Holmes is full of fierce Nordic weather. And these are just a few of the many recent pieces that could be cited.

Hodad differs from the conventional treatment of nature in music, however, by making the ocean an integral partner in the composition and the performance. This might seem impractical – apart from bagpipes or a massed brass band, acoustic instruments intended for the confines of the concert hall would seem to be no match for nature outdoors. The violin in Hodad is fitted with a pickup, but even so, it would be hard to imagine a greater imbalance than that between a single violin and the Pacific surf. Yet it is this one-sided combination that is the key to the piece.

Hodad opens with the camera looking out to the open sea with the sound of the waves rolling up on the shore. Myra Hinrichs is seen facing the surf, with her violin and music stand. She soon starts off with a soft, sustained tone that begins when a wave washes up to the beach. There is no attempt here to make the violin compete with the surf; this is intentional as the composer is also the sound engineer for this performance. The camera work by Tim Lacatena is properly static, with the ocean and Ms. Hinrichs sharing the scene equally. As the piece continues, the violin seems, at times, to be loosely coordinated with the wave action, but always with soft, sustained tones. It should be noted that the ocean that day was absolutely typical for the season – low rolling waves with an afternoon breeze and a slightly hazy sky. There was no drama in the water, everything on the otherwise empty beach was entirely normal.

The surf, tame by the standards of the ocean, nevertheless completely dominates the sound from the violin. A few tentative pizzicato notes were seen on the video, but these were completely inaudible. The sound mixing keeps the surf in the foreground and invites focus and close listening to hear the violin. The result of this is that the sounds of the surf are more vivid to the listener and a wide variety of details are heard that might otherwise be ignored by the brain. In a sense the ocean has stolen the show, but this is only possible because the surf a participant in the performance. The roll of the incoming waves, the rattle of sand and stone in the surf along with the hiss of a wave running up on the beach are all heard with a new clarity and detail. Without the violin, the listener hears the wash of the surf as a kind of sonic wallpaper – with the violin, the waves become a second instrument.

The fragility of the violin in the salty air and strong breeze is obvious in the video. The disciplined playing by Ms. Hinrichs is critical – meant to compliment the surf and not to dominate or even equal it. Hodad is a metaphor for the relative spheres of influence – the violin in the concert hall and the surf outdoors. One is full of quiet introspection, the other has unlimited energy, but in this piece both can be examined by the listener in the same context. Hodad is an ambitious piece, if only for including a force of nature into the performance. A sunny afternoon spent at the beach will never seem the same.

Hodad is available for viewing through Music for Your Inbox.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Piano

Alvin Lucier – Music for Piano XL

Grand Piano Records, a Naxos recording label, has released Music for Piano XL, a CD premiere of experimental music by Alvin Lucier performed by award-winning French pianist Nicolas Horvath. Music for Piano XL extends Horvath’s exploration of contemporary composition that has featured works by Philip Glass, Dennis Johnson and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as the piano music of Erik Satie and Claude Debussy. Lucier’s Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL is the formal title of the single track on this CD, and it is exactly that, with a duration slightly over an hour. Horvath writes that the listening experience is “immersive, intense and enigmatic…”

Alvin Lucier (b 1931) is an American who is noted for incorporating acoustical phenomena as an integral part of his compositions. Perhaps his best known work is I am Sitting in a Room, from 1969. in which a recording of those words is played and re-recorded in a large open room. With each recorded iteration, the sounds of the words are rounded off as the acoustic of the room imposes and reinforces its characteristic resonances. Eventually, a sort of ghostly image of tones is all that remains, stripped of intelligibility but filled with a deep sense of introspection.

Auditory perception forms another important aspect of Luciers work. In these pieces, the listener is often surprised and enlightened by the differences between the sound heard by the ear and the perception formed by the brain. I once attended Lucier’s Outlines of Persons and Things (1975), a sound installation that projected a pure electronic tone from two strategically placed speakers in a reverberant acoustic space. Listeners were invited to walk through the space, altering the intensity and deflecting flow of the sound waves in the room. Special objects were also placed in fixed locations to scatter or focus the sounds bouncing off the walls and people. The result was that the electronic pitch and volume varied according to the position of the listener and in many places the differences over just a few feet were startling.

Lucier’s compositions for conventional instruments also incorporate acoustic phenomena, as Frank J. Oteri writes in the liner notes:

“Given Lucier’s fascination with the impact of resonance on various sonorities, it should be no surprise that many of his compositions featuring conventional musical instruments involve a piano. Curiously, though his music defies conventional concepts of melody, harmony, and rhythm and often explores intervals not easily produced on a keyboard, Lucier frequently composes at the piano in his home, sometimes listening intently to the sonic envelope of single tones as he strikes them over and over.”

Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL represents one of Lucier’s furthest inquiries into the idea that purely acoustic phenomena can sustain and propel a performance piece. The striking of a piano string combined with clean electronic tones gives rise to a variety of interactions and ‘beating’ when the pitches are closely matched. This composition is informed entirely by the character of these interactions – how they arise, persist and decay. The XL version on this CD was created specifically for Nicolas Horvath and has been expanded to over an hour from the original 15 minutes. This was recorded on one take, with the pianist having to continuously evaluate the sounds after striking each precisely notated keystroke and making suitable adjustments in timing or volume as the piece proceeds. The electronic oscillator continuously produces two tones that sweep over a range of four octaves and the distilled purity of these sounds is always in stark contrast to the warmer tones of the piano notes.

So how does all this sound? Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL opens with a steady electronic tone, establishing a clean, almost antiseptic ambiance. A single piano note is soon heard, followed by another, and these seem to be related in pitch to the electronics. This music requires close listening and it is only after a few piano notes are heard that the interactions with the electronic tones become conspicuous to the ear. The piano notes are heard in different registers to match changes in the electronic tones, with the lower tones often producing the most prominent beating interactions. The piano notes start singularly at first and are allowed to fully ring out. As the piece proceeds, two or more piano notes are occasionally heard together, and their interactions with each other – and with the electronics – create a new class of acoustic effects. There is no musical form, structure or melody in the playing, just a series of continuous electronic tones and separately sustained piano notes.

The intensity of the electronics seems to vary over the course of the piece, sometimes in the forefront and sometimes more like a background accompaniment. Similarly, Horvath varies the striking force on the piano keyboard to produce a note that will intersect with the electronics for maximum effect. When the electronics are the most dominant, the brain tries to reconcile the purity of the electronic pitch with the more familiar timbre of the piano. As the sounds interact, they tend to overlap and blur the differences so that the listener is left to decide if it is a sterile tone or a musical note that is being heard. The act of determining and evaluating one’s acoustic perception makes this an engaging and instructive work.

The piano notes and the electronics often change register, moving around between low, middle and higher pitches. Sometimes there is little or no observable interaction between the notes and tones. Often the lower registers produce the most perceptible beating, creating almost a rumble. When several piano notes are sounded together against a closely pitched electronic tone, a more complex series of interactions often results. In general, when the electronic tones and piano notes are both strong – and close in pitch – the interactions are most pronounced. But this falls along a wide spectrum of possibilities, seemingly different for each new combination of pitch and force. Towards the finish of the piece, a wobbly higher tone is heard softly accompanied by piano notes. The piano notes then cease while the electronic tone continues on for last two minutes, finally slowing and fading out at the finish.

Listening to Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL often feels like being in an acoustic experiment, but the listener soon learns to focus and evaluate each combination of notes and tones. The result is a better appreciation of how sounds and music are perceived, and what choices the brain must make to determine the dominant character of what is heard. This performance by Nicolas Horvath is disciplined and precise, providing just the right touch for the piano notes under each acoustic condition. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL will surely add to Horvath’s reputation as a leading interpreter of the most unusual experimental forms in contemporary music.

Music for Piano XL is available from Grand Piano, Naxos, Apple Music and Amazon.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Douglas Boyce: Hunt by Night (CD Review)

Douglas Boyce

Hunt By Night: Chamber Works by Douglas Boyce

counter)induction; Trio Cavatina; Beth Guterman Chu, viola; Schuyler Slack, cello,

Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano

New Focus CD

 

In selecting the fifteenth century “L’Homme Arme” tune as the centerpiece for his quintet by the same name, composer Douglas Boyce demonstrates an affinity for connecting music of the past with an individual contemporary voice. The piece leads off his portrait CD Hunt by Night, and it matches a structural integrity akin to Renaissance talea with an energetic, propulsive demeanor. Chamber ensemble counter)induction impressively navigates the intricacies of the score, particularly impressive in their rhythmic coordination of a number of turn-on-a-dime entrances.

 

Two pieces from Boyce’s A Book of Etudes both deal with rhythm in still more intricate fashion. Stretto Perpetuo, played by cellist Schuyler Slack and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, deals with, as its title suggests, constant and varied kinds of overlap. A recurring ostinato is broken into sections where the opening gesture is treated in different tempos and various playing techniques. Metric modulation further complicates the structure of Stretto Perpetuo, but Slack and Jokubaviciute present a detailed and robust performance of even the work’s thorniest challenges. The title work, a trio played by clarinetist Benjamin Fingland, pianist Ning Yu, and cellist Caleb van der Swaagh, members of counter)induction, is filled with ostinatos as well; its three-fold repetitions of small melodic cells take on a post-minimal cast. Fingland plays impressively, employing glissandos and rasps reminiscent in places of Klezmer. Elsewhere, all three instrumentalists engage in an elaborate game of follow-the-leader that suggests the title’s hunting metaphor. The coda reenacts this passage in slow motion, culminating in a delicately arcing descent to the bass register.

 

Piano Quartet No. 2 is sinuously textured, with glissandos and repeating fragments providing a counterweight to angular melodies. Repetitions are offset to create a kaleidoscopic panoply of gestures. Trio Cavatina, joined by violist Beth Guterman Chu, provides supple sliding tones, explosive repeating gestures, and characterful delineation of the piece’s sectional progress and playful conclusion.

 

Sails Knife-bright in a Seasonal Wind, the title taken from Derek Mahon’s poem Achill, was written for counter)induction members violinist Miranda Cuckson, guitarist Dan Lippel, and percussionist Jeffrey Irving. Boyce dedicates the piece to his then four year-old son, and the younger Boyce’s loves – a half-size guitar, movement and dance, and the moon and the stars – all evoke touching moments in the piece. Lippel’s playing takes on a puckish character, while Cuckson’s violin outlines a jaunty dance tune adorned by colorful percussion from Irving. Finally, the games end, naptime encroaches, and we are treated to a dreamscape presented as a gentle lullaby. Boyce moves easily between technical fluency and emotional resonance, making Hunt by Night a most satisfying collection of his music.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CDs, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Podcasts, Women composers

Podcast: Voices of the Pearl

This podcast examines Voices of the Pearl, a particularly interesting project that combines the rediscovery of ancient religious texts, the setting of these texts by women into chamber music by contemporary composers and the historical role of women in sacred music. Our guests are Dr. Anne Harley, Artistic Director of the Voices of the Pearl project and Dr. Stacey Fraser, soprano. The podcast will explore the music of their third and latest CD album. With Jim Goodin.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Flute, Los Angeles

Wilfrido Terrazas – ĺtaca

Wilfrido Terrazas
Cero Records

Cero Records has released Ítaca, a new CD of solo flute music by Wilfrido Terrazas. The album contains ten mostly short pieces that explore a wide variety of musical sounds and extended techniques, inspired by epic Greek poetry. Terrazas is a native of Mexico and has performed widely throughout the world. He is currently a member of the music faculty at UCSD and a presence in the Southern California new music scene. His website states that “His work focuses on finding points of convergence between notated and improvised music, and in exploring innovative approaches to collaboration and collective creation.” Ítaca was composed over two months in 2012 during an artistic residency at the Ionian Center for Arts and Culture in Metaxata, Greece.

Ítaca is motivated by Terrazas’ long fascination with Greek culture and especially Homer’s Odyssey. Those familiar with that epic poem will recall that it is the story of Odysseus’ ten year journey to return to his native Ithaca (Ítaca) after the Trojan War. Nine of the ten pieces on the CD directly relate to an episode or a character in the Odyssey. While the poem itself does not follow a strictly chronological order, the descriptions of the album tracks given here are roughly in the sequence that they appear in the Odyssey story line, so as to give some context to the music.

The first track on the CD is Exordio (Epilogo), for flute in C. This serves as an introduction and sets out the pattern for the music in this album: improvisation contained within an overall narrative structure. Exordio begins with a long and low tone sustained by what seems to be circular breathing. Some overtones are also heard so that there is a quiet, preliminary feel to this. As the piece proceeds, the sounds break out into full tones, often with more than one pitch present. This gives a brighter and unexpectedly colorful feel, as if the plot is on the move. The pitches wander and there is no imposition of harmonic or melodic structure. The tones move faster towards the end with a brilliant flourish followed by a sudden finish. The versatility and variety of the unconventional expressions are impressive, mesmerizing the listener – perhaps just as Homer might have done reciting the dramatic opening lines of the Odyssey.

Calipso (Ausencia), on track 2, is inspired by the seven years Odysseus spent with as a captive of the goddess Calypso. This one of the shorter pieces at 3:03 and opens with low, slurred tones and a rolling feel. Odysseus had a life of comfort with Calypso, but nevertheless sought to leave her island for his home. The active melody line combines an interesting texture with increasing speed and a shrill tone. Many notes follow in rapid succession, all with a sure-footed technical proficiency, suggesting Odysseus’ successful, if harrowing, escape.

Nausicaa (Mar), on track 4, is inspired by the aftermath of the escape by raft of Odysseus from Calypso. He is found washed up and unconscious on Schrie, the island home of the Phaeacians. The daughter of the local king, Princess Nausicaä, finds and cares for him. This is a piccolo piece that opens with soft, whispering sounds as well as thin, streaky sounds as if shards of wind are blowing by on an empty beach. The main tone is breathy and only slowly gains some footing and speed – perhaps Odysseus reviving. Now the notes are very precise and rapidly phrased. The tones take on a high, almost mechanical feel – like a squeaky axle. After of few days of recovery, Odysseus is promised a ship for his return to Ithaca by Nausicaä’s parents. Very rapid notes converge on a single sustained pitch, a pure, almost electronic sound, just as the piece ends.

While on Schrie, Odysseus recounts to the Phaeacians his many adventures returning from the Trojan war. Setting out from Troy, he is blown off course on the voyage home to Ithaca. Odysseus and his crew land on a distant island inhabited by a race of Cyclops. Nadie (Odiseo), on track 3, opens with a rapid blast of blurry notes and recalls the encounter with the Cyclops, who has trapped Odysseus and his shipmates in a cave. There is lots of sound here, with runs of high notes and repeating counterpoint below – almost like two parts from one flute. The playing is impressive and brightly engaging, with no breaks or slow stretches. The climactic battle between Odysseus and Polyphemus, the cyclops who had trapped the Greeks, is portrayed by the flute with an almost maniacal speed and range.

After a narrow escape from the Cyclops, Odysseus is given a leather bag by Aeolus, keeper of the winds. The bag contains all the adverse winds that would keep his ship from reaching home. Odysseus sets sail, but just as they came within sight of Ithaca, the sailors opened the bag, thinking it contained gold. All of the winds were released, driving the ship back the way it had come, and on to new adventures. Eolo (Proteo), track 8, begins with a low, almost inaudible sound of air moving through the flute. There are no musical tones – only air. All is mysterious and unfamiliar with only a few tones breaking through from the air. Close listening to the air sounds makes for a sudden surprise when a tone is heard. More very soft sounds are heard at the halfway point, half musical and half breathy. The winds seem to dissipate as more tones are heard that come and go with silences between. There are plenty of extended techniques here with very few conventional sounds. The winds and tones fade at the finish into silence.

At this point in Homer’s story, Odysseus and his crew have arrived at the island of Aeaea, ruled by the witch Circe, who has drugged the sailors and turned half of them into swine. Circe (Niebla) opens on track 5 in a low sustained tone with a slightly wobbling pitch from the bass flute. The sound is drone-like but with some surface variations and pitch bending. This becomes much softer – perhaps under-blown – as if portraying a foggy state of inebriation. Two pitches are heard simultaneously, followed by a very soft tone – continuous and just on the edge of intonation. The playing is very controlled and disciplined, yet with simple surfaces that artfully conjure the thickly befuddled senses of the sailors.

After staying a year with Circe, Odysseus and his crew sail across the ocean to the western edge of the world. Odysseus visits the realm of the dead, as portrayed in track 9, Hades (Tiresias). This begins with a sharp blast of breathy notes, as if scattered by a machine gun and interspersed with breathy, wind-like sections. There are grunts and shouts as well, and the intense virtuosity of the playing builds to a frightening climax. The sounds are very animated and hot to the touch!

Track 6, Escudo (Torre), refers to the shield of Ajax, one of the notable Greek warriors of the Iliad – the Homeric story that precedes the Odyssey. The courage and strength of Ajax was greatly celebrated among the Greeks and Odysseus attempted to visit the deceased Ajax in Hades, but was rebuffed. Escudo begins with a light, sustained tone on the flute in C that warbles slightly in pitch, becoming breathy at times. Runs of fluid notes follow, not conventionally flute-like, but engaging to the ear. The many changes in pitch and intonation are skillfully played. The number of notes rapidly increase to create a complex texture until a long, sustained tone is heard that wanders in pitch, like a tea kettle boiling as the piece ends.

Odysseus and his crew continue their journey, sailing past the island of the fateful singing Sirens. They next encounter the six-headed sea monster Scylla and then face the forbidding whirlpool Charybdis. Escila (Caribdis), on track 7, captures these adventures with deep plunking sounds followed by a rapid flutter of notes in the low registers on the alto flute. This is the shortest piece of the album, but quickly explodes in a blizzard of notes, creating a convincing image of fast swirling motion. The melody is wickedly fast but with a smooth intonation that adds to a vivid sense of danger and panic.

After surviving the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, a storm washes Odysseus up on the island home of Calypso, bringing the account of his adventures full circle. The Phaeacians are so moved by his story they provide Odysseus with gold and treasure and secretly bring him home to Ithaca. After some score-settling with those who took advantage of his long absence, Odysseus is reunited with his household and returns to power.

Hexagram 57, the final and longest track at over 13 minutes, completes the album. This steps away from the Odyssey theme and is a bit more autobiographical in nature, inspired by the composer’s interest in Chinese culture and recent time spent in Southern California. The techniques and style are similar, but arise more directly from the present and not from the heroic ancient past. Hexagram 57 was written in San Diego and New York between February 13 and April 15, 2018 and the title comes from the classic I-Ching texts.

The piece opens with a soft, sustained tone, drone like, with an unusual intonation that is almost reed-like. The pitch changes, reminiscent of a buzzing bee, with occasional flashes of musical tones. A bit of melody creeps in – not full and round, but with a thin, breathy component and many trills. The extended techniques quickly multiply with breaths, clicks, double tones and a large vocabulary of unusual sounds that appear in rapid succession. As the piece continues there is a short stretch of more conventional notes played very fast and filled with complexity. The extended techniques return again with ever greater versatility and a precise articulation that highlights the masterful playing – always agile and marked by a supremely fluid intonation. At times there is a mechanical feel to the sounds, as if a squeaky shaft is spinning along. There is often more than one sound at once – breathy sounds plus musical pitches – as well as a sort of buzzing plus a breathy whistle heard simultaneously. Towards the end, all of this slowly declines in volume – the pitches cut out and the buzzing finally dies out at the finish. Hexagram 57 is a virtuoso performance that vividly demonstrates the incredible range of sounds produced by a flute in the hands of an accomplished master.

Ítaca successfully operates on the cutting edge of virtuoso improvisation and extended techniques while anchored in the framework of ancient epic poetry. Wilfrido Terrazas continues to push the envelope for state-of-the-art contemporary flute performance.

Ítaca is available directly from Cero Records and also from Amazon Music.


by Paul Muller