New York Chamber Ensemble, Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, conductor
"I understood it all. I understood Pablo. I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me I heard his ghastly laughter. I knew that all the hundred thousand pieces of life's game were in my pocket. A glimpse of its meaning had stirred my reason and I was determined to begin afresh.... One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too."
George Rochberg (b 1918) cites this passage from Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf as a backdrop for his Music for the Magic Theater . The central theme in the book—a magic theater meshes reality and fantasy, past and future, in search of new apertures to a living present—inspired Rochberg to embrace “a kind of sound-collage in which the past and present are quite literally juxtaposed.”
In this act of retrieval of the whole experience of Western music, Rochberg summons a varied roster of composers and styles: Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Webern, Varèse, Stockhausen, Miles Davis, and Rochberg himself. Despite sharp contrasts and what some may take for a complete absence of logic, Rochberg combines his materials in such a manner as to suggest their inevitable association in a dreamscape that is paradoxically anchored and realistic.
In his Octet; A Grand Fantasia, Rochberg adopts the traditional ensemble of the mixed wind and string octet, an ensemble with a venerable tradition from the time of Schubert, and designates the work a “Grand Fantasia” to emphasize the work's formal freedom as well as the premium placed upon gesture and the transformation of motivic content.
George Rochberg: Music for the Magic Theater
| MP3/320 | $9.99 | |
| FLAC | $9.99 | |
| WAV | $9.99 | |
| CD | $15.99 |
Track Listing
|
Music for the Magic Theater: Act I
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Music for The Magic Theater: Act II
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Music for the Magic Theater: Act III
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: I. Declamando, tragico
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: II. Largo; recitando
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: III. Tranquillo; flessibile; rubato molto
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: IV. Allegro marziale; rigoroso
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: V. Adagio molto - Tempo primo
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: VI. Lento; tranquillo
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: VII. Cadenza (horn and violin)
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: VIII. Cadenza (flute and viola)
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: IX. Cadenza (clarinet and cello)
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: X. Molto adagio
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: XI. Allegro marziale; rigoroso
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
|
|
Octet; A Grand Fantasia: XII. Largo, recitando
George Rochberg
|
Buy
|
