Kursad Terci, Kagan Korad, Soner Egesel - Bilkent Guitar Trio APE

Review from Kalan Muzik website


They gave innumerable concerts in the formations of duo, trio and quartet while they were conttinuing their guitar studiees in Bilkent University. Faculty of Performing Arts, Classical Guitar Department since 1987. Besides the well-known festivals they have participated in, and the tours they have gone abroad. "Anatolia Concert Senes" have played an important role in their professional lives. Throughout their career as classical guitarists, one of their major aims has been to excite the curiosity of people in classical music all over Anatolia. The group has given series of "Classical Guitar" concerts in many regions of Turkey induding the Southeast Turkey tor the first time, and received critical acclaim. The mass media spared great coverage to the concerts they have held in European, Asian and African countries.

The group participated in well-known festivals, some of which are the 12th and the 13th international Istanbul Guitar Festival 1st Bilkent international Anatolian Music Festival, 1997 Yapı Kredi Serial Concerts, 1996 Belfort Music Festival in France.

The group added to their repertoire and performed the premieres of the pieces compesed tıy composers from Turkey and abroad. The rest of the repertoire of the group consists of the their own transcriptions that are included in classical guitar literature.

The Ensemble also gave concerts with the Bilkent, Istanbul, Izmir and Çukurova Symphony Orchestras conducied by Rengim Gökmen, Zbigniew Graca, Andrew Greenwood, Bujor Hoinic and Christian May.

Compositions that were particularly dedicated to the gultarists by Bujor Hoinic and Nejat Başeğmezler made their world premieres by the group accompamed by the Bilkent Academic Symphony Orchestra.

Group members studied under Ahmet Kanneci and Ireneutz Strahocki in Bilkent University. Faculty of Performing Arts, Classical Guitar Department. During their studies in the department they took instructions from master guitarists some of whom are Costa Cotsiolis, Hubert Kappel, Leo Brouwer, Marco Socias, Joseph Henriquez, Roberto Aussel, Paul Gregory. They graduated from the undergraduate and graduate programmes (MA and PhD) with high honour degrees. Now. members of the group are Classical Guitar professors in the department that they graduated from and they continue giving concerts both accompamed by chamber orchestras and as soloist guitarists.

The group members continue their career as Kürşad Terci-Kağan Korad Classical Guitar Duo, performing an authentic repertoire emphasizing Turkish composers, since 2000.

Emre Araci and the Prague Symphony Chamber Orchestra - The Bosphorus by Moonlight APE

Sultan Portreleri

Review by Ates Orga in Cornucopia Issue 31

Music by Guatelli, Pisani, Selim III, Mahmud II and S­ehzade Burhaneddin Efendi.

Emre Araci: Violin Concerto. Bosphorus by Moonlight (Sultan Portreleri)

Prague Symphony Chamber Orchestra with Cihat As­kin, violin (director, Emre Araci)

Kalan Müzik CD 303

Bosphorus by Moonlight (Bogazici Mehtaplarinda Sultan Portreleri) is Emre Araci's third Euro-Ottoman CD and takes its title from his 1997 Violin Concerto, which was inspired by Abdülhak Sinasi Hisar's wartime novel of the same name.

Moonlight, memory and dream suffuse many of the numbers, nine of which are musical cameos of the Ottoman royal household published in the mid-1850s by the Sultan's Italian music director, Guatelli Pasha.

As producer of this album, I chose Prague as a location: I wanted somewhere that would release the romantic within us. How could we fail, wandering the narrow streets of the Old Town under a full moon, touched by the medieval aura of the Charles Bridge and the Jewish cemetery across the river from the floodlit castle? The neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum hall did the rest.

Portrait or military quickstep, exotic refrain or Sibelian solitude every minute in that room was special. Cihat Askin's violin lent a manly tone to the Balkan Adagio of the Concerto. Pisani's fateful, forgotten Funeral March for the death of Abdülmecid all but stopped time as the Prague Symphony strings imbued it with a gravity to match the thunder of the night beyond.

I highly recommend this one. One of my favorite classical cds.
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Ebook - Michael Fath - Paganini Caprice 24

hi folks, some education time for guitar players !

I find playing classical music on guitar very entertaining and very useful for the process of getting more and more prolific. besides, it is always interesting to see the genius of other people.

i believe this last caprice of 24 caprices is the most difficult solo violin piece ever written. It is composed in A minor and includes rapid changes of scales, which need to be played very fast. On guitar, this aspect makes the sweeping exercise very very hard yet entertaining.

and if you look for more information, please check out Paganini and 24th caprice articles of wikipedia. There is a nice amount of information.

paganini's caprice no.24 is a very famous piece and i strongly recommend any electric guitar player to play this. I mean, at least try :) learning is a nonstop process, and challenge makes forthcoming challenges easier. Remember: what does not kill you, makes you stronger.

Audio tracks are also included.

Note: I believe I got this from some other blog a long time ago, but i do not remember it.. so thanks to the original generous person which i am sorry not to credit..


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Hagen Quartet - Ligeti, Lutoslawski & Schnittke - String Quartett; Kannon in Memoriam APE

Hi Folks! Here we are with a string quartet kannon: Ligeti, Lutoslawski & Schnittke - String Quartet; Kannon in Memoriam performed by Hagen Quartett


Performer: Hagen Quartett
DG 431686: 1992 Caecilia Prize (Belgium), CD Compact Award

“The Hagens seem to take nothing for granted, thinking afresh about each tempo and, in almost every bar, what style of expression, what tone colour to adopt.."

Gramophone Awards Issue, London, October 2005 (CD review Beethoven String Quartets)

Lukas Hagen , Violin I
Rainer Schmidt , Violin II
Veronika Hagen , Viola
Clemens Hagen , Violoncello


Track01. Gyorgy Ligeti (*1923) : String Quartet No.1 «Métamorphoses nocturnes» (1953–1954)
Track02. Witold Lutoslawski (*1913) : String Quartet Introductory Movement (1964)
Track03. Witold Lutoslawski (*1913) : String Quartet Main Movement (1964)
Track04. Alfred Schnittke (*1934) : Kannon in Memoriam Igor Strawinsky for string quartet (1971)

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Hilary Hahn - Mendelssohn & Shostakovich Violin Concertos (2002)

# Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
Composed by Felix Mendelssohn
Performed by Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
with Hilary Hahn
Conducted by Hugh Wolff

# Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77 (revised as Op. 99)
Composed by Dmitry Shostakovich
Performed by Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
with Hilary Hahn
Conducted by Marek Janowski

Amazon.com
Though at first glance these two concertos seem an odd coupling, Hilary Hahn offers convincing reasons for pairing them in her scholarly but rather chatty program notes. For the listener, the most important one is her avowed love and affinity for the music, which speak through every note of her performance. At 22, Hahn has developed from an arresting teenage prodigy into a formidable violinist. Her technique is equal to all challenges and so effortless that one forgets about it. Her tone has the directness and intensity of a laser beam and the unblemished purity of fine-spun crystal. This carries over into her style: clear and straightforward, without fuss, external effects, or exaggeration--there is hardly a slide on the whole record. If her playing is rather cool, it's also noble and emotionally so genuine that she can make a popular warhorse like the Mendelssohn sound fresh and new. She takes few rhythmic liberties, but freely changes tempo for mood and expression: the second theme of the first movement is much slower than the rest. The Shostakovich, too, sounds new and different. A repertory staple of all great Russian violinists, it is usually played with a lush tone and unbridled emotionality. Hahn captures the work's bleak, lamentatious despair, the obsessiveness and sardonic irony, but her playing has the sort of fire that burns ice-blue rather than red-hot. It projects a sense of restraint, of pent-up tension and excitement that finally burst out in the cadenza. It is a riveting performance. The orchestra is very good, but often too loud in the Mendelssohn. --Edith Eisler

Helene Grimaud - Chopin & Rachmaninov Piano Sonatas APE

Composer: Frederic Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninov
Performer: Helene Grimaud
Audio CD (March 8, 2005)
Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Tracks:
01. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor Op.35 - I. Grave - Doppio Movimento - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)
02. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor Op.35 - II. Scherzo - Più lento - Tempo I - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)
03. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor Op.35 - III. Marche Funèbre (Lento) - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)
04. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor Op.35 - IV. Finale (Presto) - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)
05. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor Op. 36 - I. Allegro agitato - Hélène Grimaud (Rachmaninov)
06. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor Op. 36 - II. Non allegro - Lento - Hélène Grimaud (Rachmaninov)
07. Piano Sonata No. 2 In B Flat Minor Op. 36 - III. Allegro molto - Hélène Grimaud (Rachmaninov)
08. Berceuse In D Flat Major Op. 57 - Andante - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)
09. Barcarolle In F Sharp Major Op. 60 - Allegretto - Hélène Grimaud (Chopin)

Amazon.com:
Hélène Grimaud's releases on DG have each been built around a "concept." Here, it's death and transcendence. The philosophically bent can get Grimaud's explanation in the booklet notes, while the musical among us can just listen to a stimulating program of standard repertory freshened by one of today's outstanding younger pianists. In the Chopin Sonata, Grimaud's volatile first movement and delicately colorful finale provide the tone and resolution required by both composer and her own philosophical outlook. The latter, though, means a dry-eyed Funeral March shorn of any trace of sentimentality yet not lacking power, more a contemplation of mourning rather than the thing itself. The Rachmaninov Sonata is his 1931 revision with Grimaud's restoration of sections of the 1913 original. As in the Chopin, Grimaud's gorgeous tone and the clarity of her articulation help make this an outstanding performance. The program closes with a pair of Chopin's most affecting works, the Berceuse and the Barcarolle, both beautifully played.
Dan Davis

Hilary Hahn - Paganini and Spohr Violin Concertos FLAC

Composer: Niccolo Paganini, Louis Spohr
Conductor: Eiji Oue
Performer: Hilary Hahn
Orchestra: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Audio CD (October 10, 2006)
Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Amazon.com
The Paganini concerto, with its combination of wild virtuosity and fatty, gushy melody, is a favorite of audiences and violinists; fiddlers love to strut their stuff and the public can't resist anything so juicy. Hilary Hahn here throws her violinist hat into the ring with Perlman, Kogan, and Gil Shaham and comes out looking just fine. She handles the incredibly showy outer movements with flair, poise, and startling precision, and spins out the long, Italian melodies in the middle movement beautifully. Similarly, she handles the Spohr almost as if it were composed for the voice--it's an enchanting performance. Simply stunning and highly recommended. --Robert Levine

Tracks: 6
Total time: 57:47
Disc-ID: classical / 440d8b06
1. Paganini Violin Concerto no.1 in D major, op.6 1.Allegro maestoso 21:38
2. Paganini Violin Concerto no.1 in D major, op.6 2.Adagio 5:40
3. Paganini Violin Concerto no.1 in D major, op.6 3.Rondo. Allegro spirituoso 10:36
4. Spohr Violin Concerto no.8 in A minor, op.47 1.Allegro molto 4:05
5. Spohr Violin Concerto no.8 in A minor, op.47 2.Adagio 7:44
6. Spohr Violin Concerto no.8 in A minor, op.47 3.Allegro moderato 8:04

Note: Above picture is not the cd cover. All artworks are with the music.
Just have a taste and go buy her album. Its amazing !