the lay of the love

Second Inversion hosts Seth, Geoffrey, and Maggie M. each share a favorite selection from the Friday 4/15/16 playlist! Tune in at the indicated times below to hear these pieces. In the meantime, you’ll hear other great new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre 24/7!

Lisa Bielawa: “Hurry” from The Lay of the Love (Innova)

Lisa Bielawa’s Hurry is a breathless recounting of the composer’s impressions of a Boris Pasternak poem, translated to English from the original Russian. I love how Bielawa seamlessly transitions from the sparse, bare and wide-open chamber music textures of the work’s opening sections to the larger, lyrical, almost orchestral sounds later in the piece. It’s an all-star cast on this recording, featuring some of my favorite powerhouse musicians such as pianist Benjamin Hochmann and clarinetist Anthony McGill. – Geoffrey Larson

Check out the first stanza from Boris Pasternak’s poem:

Hurry, my verses, hurry; never
have I so needed you before.
Round the corner there’s a house
where the days have broken rank.
Comfort there’s none and all work’s stopped
and there they weep, ponder and wait.

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 2pm hour today to hear this recording.

Shara Nova: “A Whistle, A Tune, A Macaroon” from yMusic’s Beautiful Mechanical (New Amsterdam)

homepage_large.cbf92e9b Composer, songwriter, and mezzo-soprano extraordinaire Shara Worden recently changed her name to Shara Nova—and it couldn’t be more appropriate. In Hebrew, Shara means “song”—a pretty serendipitous name for a singer-songwriter—and in Latin, Nova means “new.”

Throughout her career as a full-time contemporary classical chameleon, she has recreated herself and her music again and again, exploring the furthest reaches of the classical genre. She’s created and fronted her own avant-garde rock band, My Brightest Diamond, composed and starred in her own 21^st century baroque chamber opera, “You Us We All,” and collaborated with composers and artists as diverse as the Decemberists, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Sufjan Stevens, Colin Stetson, David Byrne, and many, many more.

“A Whistle, A Tune, A Macaroon” showcases a collaboration with another powerful force in contemporary classical: yMusic. Though we don’t get to hear any of Nova’s vocals on this track, her soaring, songlike melodies and keen ear for experimentation are unmistakable in this composition. Exotic flute and clarinet idioms dance above pizzicato basslines to create a new work that is every bit as whimsical as its title. Suffice it to say, it’s a new song you do not want to miss. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 4pm hour today to hear this recording.

Matt McBane: “imagining winter” from Build (New Amsterdam)

build-build Violinist and composer Matt McBane’s ensemble Build is a favorite of mine. This week, I’m pleased to present you with their track imagining winter, composed by McBane. I’ve been very busy lately, so I’ve been focused on keeping my head down and digging in to make it through to Memorial Day weekend. That is why I connected with this particular piece this week; this music seems to be the sonic equivalent of my recent state of mind. More generally, with characteristics of minimalism, cinematic music (a la Les Triplettes de Belleville), and subdued jazz elements, this piece is an excellent soundtrack for your solitary urban adventures, whether that means a focused day at the office or a surreptitious exploration of forbidden places. – Seth Tompkins

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 6pm hour today to hear this recording.

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

“On and On and”- and what? Well that’s the whole point, there is no “what.” This piece is based on the writings of John Muir, in particular his description of the cycle of nature going “on and on.” The rising and falling patterns of this piece, at times reaching great heights of range and dynamics and suddenly falling, only to build back up again, is indicative of a simple concept seen everywhere in nature, and indeed in all realms of the arts – the buildup and release of energy, and energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed. – by David Wall

Lisa Bielawa’s album “The Lay of the Love” speaks to the amazing ways humans find hope and comfort in dark times. She was inspired to learn that thousands of World War I soldiers carried Rilke’s work, The Lay of the Love and Death, with them in their coat pockets. She wrote a moving piece for baritone, piano, and violin set to its text. The next piece, “Wait,” was inspired by just one passage in Eugene Onegin that holds out hope for an escape from exile. In the album’s closing piece, “Hurry,” a soprano narrator digs deep to find a creative muse during a bleak period in her life, and a chamber ensemble cries out alongside her. There’s an inspirational message here for anyone who needs a pick-me-up. – by Jill Kimball

The John Adams Chamber Symphony is one of my favorite works of music and is a mind-bending, exhilarating, fiendishly difficult piece to perform – every time I hear of a new recording I have a fangirl-level freakout. But the insanity of the Chamber Symphony is just the beginning of this musical thrill-ride from the Aurora Orchestra; we also get a touch of Charles Ives, Copland’s original chamber version of Appalachian Spring, and a Nico Muhly arrangement of Paul Simon, all presented in story-board fashion prefaced by a spoken-word and mandolin piece by Max Baillie. This tour-de-force of Americana doesn’t just show the range of different styles between the different composers, it exposes surprising similarities. – by Geoffrey Larson