Charles Ives: Piano, Chamber & Vocal Works is Naxos American Classics' reissue of a stimulating and magnificently well-played album originally appearing on the Musical Heritage Society label, recorded in 1986 and 1987. Joel Sachs and Cheryl Seltzer are pianists who play as a duo, and separately, within the Continuum ensemble. In the selection of six Ives songs presented here they make an intelligent choice: that four hands (or at least three) are better than two when it comes to some of Ives' blackest piano music, whether ...
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Charles Ives: Piano, Chamber & Vocal Works is Naxos American Classics' reissue of a stimulating and magnificently well-played album originally appearing on the Musical Heritage Society label, recorded in 1986 and 1987. Joel Sachs and Cheryl Seltzer are pianists who play as a duo, and separately, within the Continuum ensemble. In the selection of six Ives songs presented here they make an intelligent choice: that four hands (or at least three) are better than two when it comes to some of Ives' blackest piano music, whether scored on two staves or not. The Housatonic at Stockbridge is one of Ives' loveliest songs, and it is nice to hear it performed without the singer having to hang onto a note or phrase to allow the accompanist to finish rolling out a big chord that has more notes than most pianists have fingers. Two of Ives' rarest and most difficult songs are performed here; On the Antipodes, recorded, not well, as a choral piece back in the '60s by the Gregg Smith Singers and Aeschylus and Sophocles,...
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