Suites & Sweets, the saccharinely titled album by violinist Jessica Mathaes and pianist Rodney Waters, offers listeners chestnuts like Stravinsky's Suite Italienne drawn from his opera Pulcinella, and de Falla's feisty Suite Populaire Espagnole as well as other fine examples of the suite in the rarely (if ever) performed Henry Cowell Suite and Erich Korngold's Suite from his incidental music to Much Ado About Nothing. For listeners who have not had the pleasure to hear these latter two works, this album is worthwhile for ...
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Suites & Sweets, the saccharinely titled album by violinist Jessica Mathaes and pianist Rodney Waters, offers listeners chestnuts like Stravinsky's Suite Italienne drawn from his opera Pulcinella, and de Falla's feisty Suite Populaire Espagnole as well as other fine examples of the suite in the rarely (if ever) performed Henry Cowell Suite and Erich Korngold's Suite from his incidental music to Much Ado About Nothing. For listeners who have not had the pleasure to hear these latter two works, this album is worthwhile for them alone. Cowell's Suite in particular combines his keen and underappreciated knack for melody writing along with his well-known, unique harmonization techniques. Korngold's, also no stranger to writing lush, singing melodies, is perhaps more abstract when thought of as incidental music, but it displays very idiomatic writing for violin and piano. The two "sweets" on the album -- Ravel's Pièce en forme de Habanera and Massenet's Meditation from Thaïs -- should be considered for what...
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