Lisa REIM; Luca VANNESCHI; Pierre COUPRIE; Tony
LEUNG; Lars GRAUGAARD; Jean-Luc DARBELLAY; Andreas PFLÜGER; Serban NICHIFOR.
Pieces for ensemble (first performances)
Luxembourg
Sinfonietta/Wengler
Editions LGNM 401[54 mins]
This is a new CD, promoted during the ISCM World Music Days at Luxembourg,
with a particular claim upon Music on the Web's attention. It is a
record of an admirable project conceived for the launch of a new chamber
ensemble of variable composition.
For the first concerts of the Luxembourg Sinfonietta, the Luxembourg
Society for Contemporary Music appealed world-wide on its website for
compositions for an unusual ensemble with saxophones (2), tuba and accordion
together with more usual instruments, string trio, clarinet & bass clarinet,
and percussion. The potential of this combination clearly fired imaginations,
and the concert here recorded, to high musical and technical standards under
the direction of Marcel Wengler, Artistic Director of the New Music Days
(September/October 2000) is a great success, with widely different stylistic
responses and utilisation of the exotic possibilities offered. The CD was
presented to all delegates and composers who attended the New Music Days,
and to Seen&Heard.
The eight composers receiving world premiere recordings here come from Italy,
France, Hong Kong, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania and England (Lisa Reim,
German born, Dartington & York trained). Of those whose ages are disclosed,
the earliest-born are two Swiss, Andreas Pflüger and Jean-Luc Darbellay
(President of the Swiss Society for Contemporary Music), both in their fifties.
I guess the others are all younger.
Several of these little known composers will be grateful for this exposure,
which might not so easily have come their way without The Power of the Web!
This CD, together with many of music by Luxembourg composers, is available
from Editions LGNM http://www.lgnm.lu
Peter Grahame Woolf
