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Brave New Worlds: Music from the Americas

by Francesca Anderegg

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about

Brave New Worlds highlights the geographic and social journeys of four towering composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Crossing international divides, these four composers each struck out in bold new directions in their music. The listening experience of the album is expansive - each piece plays with our sense of time and space, broadening our notions of what is possible.

Aaron Copland and Heitor Villa-Lobos were both associated with the Pan-American Association of Composers, a collective in New York City in the 1930’s that brought together the music of composers from North and South America to promote cross-cultural connections. Copland, in particular, was influenced by Latin America: his interest in Mexican folk music and dance (among other influences) inspired him to attempt simplicity and directness in his music. In Copland’s Duo, the perfect intervals and open sound of the introduction are typical of his populist style that has since come to define American composition, and the phrases unfold in a leisurely, fluid manner. The second movement, marked “Poetic, somewhat mournful” casts a gloomy spell, and the last movement contains constellations of harmonic glitter, brilliant passagework, and rustic charm. Copland’s Duo is originally for flute and piano, arranged for violin and piano by the composer and edited by Robert Mann (Anderegg’s teacher).

Heitor Villa-Lobos' career was influenced by his sojourns abroad - his tours in Spain and France gave him an opportunity to showcase his unique musical style, and cemented his reputation as one of Brazil's most internationally recognized composers. His Sonata-Fantasia No. 1 is an early work, from a period when Villa-Lobos was still primarily influenced by European concert music. Subtitled Désespérance ("Despair"), this work explores the depths of the human psyche. The character of the music ranges from reflective to abrupt, tangled, rhythmically disjointed: this is despair in all its forms, both the tragic sensibilities of 19th-century Romanticism and a raw, existential howl into the void.

Another composer caught up in the cross-currents of Pan-American exchange was Alberto Ginastera: living in New York in the 1940’s, he was a student of Aaron Copland. He too used folk and dance music to create a popular, nationalistic style. His Pampeana No. 1 is inspired by the endless vistas of the Argentinean grasslands - the pampas. The soaring, rhapsodic, free phrases of the violin cadenza are supported by the piano imitating the strum of open strings on the guitar, before giving way to a fast dance inspired by the gauchos.

Amy Beach, through her privilege and status as the wife of an eminent physician, was able to transcend the social barriers that held most women composers of the 19th century back from pursuing a career outside the home and salon. Beach’s compositions were premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and she enjoyed a prestigious career. Her rarely recorded Violin Sonata Op. 34 is immense in scope, with a dazzling range of textures, moods, harmonic surprises, intensity and grandeur. Virtuosic for both instruments, it is tightly composed, full of painful harmonies and late-Romantic yearnings, and offers an expansive look at the formal possibilities of the sonata.

This album was recorded at Kracum Concert Hall at Carleton College in 2018, and released February 2022.

credits

released February 14, 2022

Matthew McCright, piano
Matthew Zimmerman, engineer

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Francesca Anderegg Minneapolis, Minnesota

Hailed by the New York Times for her “rich tone” and “virtuosic panache,” violinist Francesca Anderegg performs contemporary and classical music. Through her inventive programming, composer collaborations, and precise yet impassioned interpretations, she has earned renown as a musical explorer of the first order. "This was playing that had it all — taste, mastery, sensuality." – The Arts Journal ... more

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