Release Date: 01 August 2005
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943923627
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: TALMA
Description
Louise Talma (1906-96)The Ambient Air Lament 7 Episodes Variations on 13 Ways of Looking at aBlackbird Conversations Soundshots Full CircleLouise Talma was the foremost American neo-classicalcomposer. In her day she was highly acknowledged inthe United States and collected numerous importantawards. Among the many honours she received werethose of being the first woman to win two GuggenheimFellowships (1946 and 1947), and the first woman to beelected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters(1974). She was also the first American woman to havean opera performed at a major European opera house;the 1962 Frankfurt premi?¿re of The Alcestiad, based ona play by Thornton Wilder, received a twenty minutestanding ovation. She studied at the Institute of MusicalArts in New York from 1922 to 1930, and, having aFrench opera-singer mother, it is not surprising that shespent thirteen summers, from 1926, at theFontainebleau School of Music in France. There shestudied the piano with Isidore Philipp, and harmony,counterpoint, fugue and composition with NadiaBoulanger. She herself became a very committedteacher and taught at Hunter College, CUNY from 1928to 1979.Louise Talma's music shows a keen intellectualmind, but she also engages listeners at a visceral leveland entertains them with her originality and quirkiness.She frequently combines motor energy, sometimesassociated with Stravinsky, with a beautiful melancholyexpression, and often creates moments of extraordinarybeauty, such as in the Lullaby in Seven Episodes. Sheseems to have warmed to the precision of neoclassicism,the discipline of Boulanger's teaching, andFrench lightness of touch. While there are elements thatcould be connected to her time in Paris, her language isquite unique. Her output was substantial and covered awide range of genres. She wrote numerous vocal works,both choral and solo, in which she set a great variety oftexts, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Auden, John F.Kennedy and e. e. cummings. Her piano works embracepieces for children, sonatas and the virtuoso Alleluia inForm of Toccata.Apart from Soundshots, all the works on this discwere written in the 1980s, when Louise Talma was inher late seventies and early eighties. Her maturity givesthe music a rare, distilled quality. Her musical thinkinghas a very focussed precision; textures are generallytransparent; the atmosphere is at times ironic, strange,even bizarre, at others it has a deeply affecting sadness.The beauty of her slow music is exceptional.The Ambient Air, written in 1983 and scored forflute, violin, cello and piano, is in four movements,Echo Chamber, Driving Rain, Creeping Fog, andShifting Winds. Much of Talma's music is descriptive,and here we have titles to tell us her thinking. It isappropriately evocative, and she creates strikingpictures in sound. While the combination of a flute witha piano trio might suggest something light in effect, sheuses the instrumental colours with great originality topaint very at
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
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David Darling
Various
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Tagliaferri/Sciddurlo
Swr So Baden Freiburg
Seung-Yeun Huh
Oxford Girls Choir/Skinner
Monks Of Solesmes
