Pianists Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have turned eastward for inspiration for the disc entitled Orientale. It's a great exploration of music for two pianos or piano four-hands that incorporates the sounds of or evokes the atmosphere of Eastern musics and cultures. First is Adam Gorb's Yiddish Dances, five dances inspired by klezmer music. Put all together they have a structure similar to Liszt's Hungarian or Enescu's Rumanian Rhapsodies, and they also have a gypsy-ish tinge to them, a passion for expression ...
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Pianists Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have turned eastward for inspiration for the disc entitled Orientale. It's a great exploration of music for two pianos or piano four-hands that incorporates the sounds of or evokes the atmosphere of Eastern musics and cultures. First is Adam Gorb's Yiddish Dances, five dances inspired by klezmer music. Put all together they have a structure similar to Liszt's Hungarian or Enescu's Rumanian Rhapsodies, and they also have a gypsy-ish tinge to them, a passion for expression through music. That same intensity of feeling is present in Joseph Achron's Hebrew Melody, which concludes the disc, although Achron's piece is deeply mournful. The best-known composers here are Saint-Saëns, Borodin, and Holst. Saint-Saëns uses rhythmic patterns from Arabian music, rather than scales and harmonies in his Chanson Arabe, so that the work is more about pianism than creating a musical picture of Arabia. Holst's suite, Beni Mora, on the other hand, is very Arabian sounding. It...
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