The deployment of the central work on this Swedish release is not as unorthodox as it looks. Foliations, a portmanteau word combining "folia" and "variations," is, sure enough, a set of variations on the originally Iberian chord progression La folia, composed by Northern Illinois University professor Jan Bach. The locations of the opening theme and final fugue are fixed by the composer, but the intervening variations are left up to the players as to ordering. Presumably this includes dropping other pieces into the sequence, ...
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The deployment of the central work on this Swedish release is not as unorthodox as it looks. Foliations, a portmanteau word combining "folia" and "variations," is, sure enough, a set of variations on the originally Iberian chord progression La folia, composed by Northern Illinois University professor Jan Bach. The locations of the opening theme and final fugue are fixed by the composer, but the intervening variations are left up to the players as to ordering. Presumably this includes dropping other pieces into the sequence, as is done here. But it's a clever idea, and the members of the always innovative Stockholm Chamber Brass deserve credit both for finding this music from the U.S. Midwest and for ingeniously applying it. Bach's variations do not stray too far from the original in tonality. They're distinguished from each other above all through the use of whimsical rhythms and designated with equally whimsical titles and tempo indications ("Germanic: Bomposo"). For a few of these, such as the...
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