Release Date: 02 January 2007
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313013470
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: EL-KHOURY
Description
Bechara El-Khoury (b.1957) New York Tears and Hope • Les Fleuves engloutis • Sextuor • Waves • Fragments oubliés Bechara El-Khoury was born in Beirut in 1957. He started his musical studies in Lebanon with Hagop Arslanian, then moved to Paris in 1979 to further his training as a composer with Pierre-Petit, the then director of the Ecole Normale de Musique founded by Alfred Cortot. When he decided to settle in Paris, he already had behind him a twin reputation as a composer, with some hundred works written between 1969 and 1978, and as a poet, with several collections published from 1971 onwards, as well as a solid career as pianist, conductor and Kapellmeister, and a contributor to the press. An important concert of his works was given on 9 December 1983 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris by the Colonne Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Dervaux, as part of the centenary commemoration of the Lebanese-American philosopher and poet Khalil Gibran. In 1987 El-Khoury took French nationality. His works have been played by ensembles as distinguished as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Colonne Orchestra (Paris), the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the Orchestre National de Montpellier.On 25 May 2006 his Violin Concerto, Aux frontières de nulle part (On the Frontiers of Nowhere), Op. 62, was performed for the first time at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, by the violinist Sarah Nemtanu with the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Kurt Masur. In his youth Bechara El-Khoury lived through the terrible war in the Lebanon and in memory of this dark period composed a musical trilogy of particular emotional intensity, Symphonic Poem No. 1 'The Lebanon in Flames', the Requiem 'To the Lebanese Martyrs of the War' [Naxos 8.557691], and the Symphony 'The Ruins of Beirut' [Naxos 8.557043].In the opinion of many commentators at the time, 11 September 2001 opened a new era in our history, full of uncertainties, of chaos and anguish. The illusion of "the end of history" engendered in 1989 by the fall of the Berlin Wall was only a short, optimistic interlude in the full progression of the sufferings of humanity. El-Khoury, the man and the artist, could only feel overwhelmed by the New York tragedy. With New York Tears and Hope (2001-2005) he follows the tracks of his great predecessors Martinů, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Penderecki and Nono, who knew how to bear witness in their music to the emotion excited by the worst violence of modern barbarism, and to re-affirm the place that the composer can and must hold in the city. In this work El-Khoury takes a humanistic perspective that pays homage to civilian, innocent and chance victims of the attack on the Twin Towers.The general expressive contour of the work extends across a succession of states, des
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
