Aleph Guitar Quartet; Daisy Press
Release Date: 27 January 2023
Label: Kairos Re ords
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 9120010286070
Genres: Classical Contemporary Classical
Description
The Aleph Guitar Quartet and soprano Daisy Press present a selection from Smolka's oeuvre that spans almost 25 years of this extraordinary composer's contribution to the guitar repertoire. The music of Martin Smolka resonates straight into the core of a suffocated planet, suffering through unending catastrophes in the political-social spheres. These sounds beckon to a possible transformation through surrendering to the incomprehensible, they create new and unique expressions of futile pains and passions of modern humans: emptiness and overabundance, self-destruction and arrogance, depression and serenity, forlornness, despondency, and the performative ridiculousness of endless Love Parades.
Martin Smolka (*1959) studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and privately with Marek Kopelent. In the years 1983–1998 he co-directed the Agon Ensemble. His compositions have been performed in many places in Europe and North America, and he also writes music for theatre and film (in a selective spirit).
Starting out from two different movements, Webernism and minimal music, Smolka arrived at a kind of concrete sonoristics, i.e. he worked musically with instrumental sounds reminiscent of familiar noises (ship and train sirens, the rumble of machines, the sounds of rain and many others), and these sound reminiscences helped to define the often nostalgic, sometimes grotesque idiom of his music.
Since 1998 his style has shifted from sonoristics to work with tones, and even with typical elements of traditional music such as the minor third or string cantilena, but these are deformed, partly by microtones and partly by collage-style compilation.
Tracklisting
Charlotte Seither
Ensemble Musikfabrik, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Austin Wulliman; Ensemble Pamplemouse
Uusinta Ensemble, Eija Kankaanranta, Maria Puusaari, Olga Heikkila, Kamus Quartet
Elizabeth Knatt, David Clements, Rachel Barnes, Scott Taylor
L'Itineraire, Leo Margue
Ilse Eerens, Tomoko Kasai, Mayumi Miyata, Masanori Oishi, Saori Oya, Naoko Yoshino
Hashtag Ensemble
Sarah Hennies
Uusinta Ensemble, Eija Kankaanranta, Maria Puusaari, Olga Heikkila, Kamus Quartet
Elizabeth Knatt, David Clements, Rachel Barnes, Scott Taylor
Robert M. Helmschrott
Robert M. Helmschrott
Kevin Juillerat, Cedric Pecia
Kaya Han
Helene Breschand, Laurence Bancaud, David Joignaux, Wilhem Latchoumia, Christelle Sery, Fanny Vicens, Wang Ying-Chieh, Ensemble Cairn, L'arsenale
