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Product Description
Gavin Bryars' major new ballet score is based on iconic moments in Tchaikovsky's ever popular ballets Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Gavin Bryars has a long association with dance has worked with some of the world's leading choreographers. Amjad is his second work with Édouard Lock's La La La Human Steps and they plan more work together. The music strikes a balance between a direct and recognizable reference to the Tchaikovsky source and new compositions, while retaining the essence of the original music. The reduced instrumentation takes an unusual chamber music formation – 2 violas, cello and piano – an ensemble capable of providing a full sound in the theatre, and the omission of the more conventional violins giving a darker and richer sonority. Bryars wrote 16 pieces, of which 13 are included in Amjad, and Édouard Lock added four pieces by the American composer David Lang, which also refer to the Tchaikovsky ballets and use the same instrumentation. The ballet has toured the world since its premiere in 2007, and continues to be performed to great critical acclaim, and audiences everywhere have praised the beauty of the music. The performers on this recording are the musicians who have been with the work since its inception. Tracks: Lang: Amjad New 6-1 / Bryars Amjad no. 8 / Bryars Amjad no. 10 / Bryars Amjad no. 1 / Bryars Amjad no. 2 / Bryars Amjad no. 14 / Bryars Amjad no. 6 / Bryars Amjad no. 3 / Bryars Amjad no. 9 / Bryars Amjad no 11 / Bryars Amjad no. 16 / Lang: Amjad I await / Bryars Amjad no. 7 / Bryars Amjad no. 15 / Bryars Amjad no. 12 / Lang: Amjad Sleeping Panorama / Lang: Amjad Swan without bass drum
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I AM UNQUALIFIED TO WRITE THIS REVIEW
10 Jun 2009
By Kerry Leimer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
How "Amjad" fits with Bryars' penchant for using found material (Hommages) or updating extant musics (Oi Me Lasso) is -- to me anyway -- an especially interesting consideration here. Drawing back to the Duchamp-inspired period of audio "readymades" that engendered the still and frankly always beautiful "Hommages" to his more recent and moving refresh of Medieval Lauds, the idea to remake/remodel Tchaikovsky is, within this aesthetic, easily a lock.
Few composers have become so adept at incorporating the ideas of the 20th or for that matter the 9th century into such a thoroughly contemporary and profound aesthetic. And Bryars does so in an individualistic manner that encourages the listener -- through the perfection of this work -- to immediately understand and embrace the enduring value of musical thinking: Always and forever and necessarily set free of technological or period constraint and temporal (dis)colouration.
I've not been a consistent listener to Tchaikovsky -- his style has always struck me as certainly far more lush and extravagant than that of Bryars -- so consequently a significant component of what makes "Amjad" so compelling is, for the present, lost to me. Unlike the more familiar (again, to me) source material of "Lauds" that drive the profoundly contemporized pieces that comprise "Oi Me Lasso", Tchaikovsky's work is a decidedly more complicated proposal. But as a long-time listener to Bryars I can confidently claim some awareness of style and purpose and result. And, as has become so gratefully typical of Bryars, this work is full of delicacy, surprise, humor, contrast and depth (no short shrift aimed at Lang). The beauty is in fact beauty as Duchamp might define it, free of prettiness and sentimentality and suffused with ballast for the intellect. And finally, in a gesture that demonstrates the efficacy of Bryars' work, I will now embark on a listening tour of the source material, and deliberately expose myself to another facet of compositional thought.
Few composers have become so adept at incorporating the ideas of the 20th or for that matter the 9th century into such a thoroughly contemporary and profound aesthetic. And Bryars does so in an individualistic manner that encourages the listener -- through the perfection of this work -- to immediately understand and embrace the enduring value of musical thinking: Always and forever and necessarily set free of technological or period constraint and temporal (dis)colouration.
I've not been a consistent listener to Tchaikovsky -- his style has always struck me as certainly far more lush and extravagant than that of Bryars -- so consequently a significant component of what makes "Amjad" so compelling is, for the present, lost to me. Unlike the more familiar (again, to me) source material of "Lauds" that drive the profoundly contemporized pieces that comprise "Oi Me Lasso", Tchaikovsky's work is a decidedly more complicated proposal. But as a long-time listener to Bryars I can confidently claim some awareness of style and purpose and result. And, as has become so gratefully typical of Bryars, this work is full of delicacy, surprise, humor, contrast and depth (no short shrift aimed at Lang). The beauty is in fact beauty as Duchamp might define it, free of prettiness and sentimentality and suffused with ballast for the intellect. And finally, in a gesture that demonstrates the efficacy of Bryars' work, I will now embark on a listening tour of the source material, and deliberately expose myself to another facet of compositional thought.
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