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Performances of Renaissance keyboard music on the piano are rarely succesful; they introduce too many extraneous elements into the style, and the music collapses under its own weight. The cheekily titled Basically Bull, which includes music by John Bull and a few other composers of the Elizabethan virginalist school, may be an exception. Bull might be called the Liszt of the English Renaissance, writing virtuoso or otherwise extreme music that seems to try to break through its own boundaries. The effect of hearing the runs in the really difficult pieces, like the Galliard "St. Thomas, Wake!" (track 2), played on a piano is fundamentally different from that of a virginal or harpsichord; the effort of achieving the specified speed lends the music a brittle quality. Pianist Alan Feinberg, otherwise a specialist in contemporary music, forges a general interpretation to match these edgy virtuoso moments, using little pedal but a variety of hard attacks that emphasize the harmonic crunches and the daring insistence on the primacy of horizontal lines in Bull's music. Feinberg succeeds in re-creating the closed-in, somewhat fevered atmosphere of the conclaves of aristocratic music lovers for whom these pieces must originally have been performed, and he is aided in this quest by the engineers of the fine American label Steinway & Sons, which is gradually building a corpus of innovative piano recordings. Working in an unspecified location, they tamp down the piano's natural resonance and effectively amplify the percussive, intense quality of Feinberg's playing. Ultimately this album must be considered an experiment, albeit one in keeping with the spirit of Bull's music, rather than a straightforward performance of these compositions. But it is certainly one that will make you sit up and take notice.
© TiVo
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A Sad Pavan for these distracted times (Thomas Tomkins)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - Thomas Tomkins, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
St. Thomas Wake Pavan and Galliard (Musica Britannica, Vol. 19, No. 126) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Qui passe for my Lady Nevell, P. 19 (William Byrd)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - William Byrd, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Pavan No. 2 (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Galliard (Musica Britannica, Vol. 19, No. 78) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Gloria tibi Trinitas No. 1 (John Blitheman)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Blitheman, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Fantasia (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 5) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
In nomine IX (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 28) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Canon, 4 in 2 (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 50) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Pavan and Galliard No. 3 in A minor (William Byrd)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - William Byrd, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
In nomine V (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 24) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Dutch Dance (Musica Britannica, Vol. 19, No. 99) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Fantasia No. 4 in D minor (Orlando Gibbons)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - Orlando Gibbons, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Pavan No. 16 in G minor (Orlando Gibbons)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - Orlando Gibbons, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Aeterne rex altissime (John Redford)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Redford, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Lord Lumley's Pavan and Galliard (Musica Britannica, Vol. 19, No. 129) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Ut re mi fa so la (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 17) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Christe redemptor omnium (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 33) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Fantasia (Musica Britannica, Vol. 14, No. 12) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Bull's Goodnight (Musica Britannica, Vol. 19, No. 143) (John Bull)
Alan Feinberg, Performer - John Bull, Composer
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
Album review
Performances of Renaissance keyboard music on the piano are rarely succesful; they introduce too many extraneous elements into the style, and the music collapses under its own weight. The cheekily titled Basically Bull, which includes music by John Bull and a few other composers of the Elizabethan virginalist school, may be an exception. Bull might be called the Liszt of the English Renaissance, writing virtuoso or otherwise extreme music that seems to try to break through its own boundaries. The effect of hearing the runs in the really difficult pieces, like the Galliard "St. Thomas, Wake!" (track 2), played on a piano is fundamentally different from that of a virginal or harpsichord; the effort of achieving the specified speed lends the music a brittle quality. Pianist Alan Feinberg, otherwise a specialist in contemporary music, forges a general interpretation to match these edgy virtuoso moments, using little pedal but a variety of hard attacks that emphasize the harmonic crunches and the daring insistence on the primacy of horizontal lines in Bull's music. Feinberg succeeds in re-creating the closed-in, somewhat fevered atmosphere of the conclaves of aristocratic music lovers for whom these pieces must originally have been performed, and he is aided in this quest by the engineers of the fine American label Steinway & Sons, which is gradually building a corpus of innovative piano recordings. Working in an unspecified location, they tamp down the piano's natural resonance and effectively amplify the percussive, intense quality of Feinberg's playing. Ultimately this album must be considered an experiment, albeit one in keeping with the spirit of Bull's music, rather than a straightforward performance of these compositions. But it is certainly one that will make you sit up and take notice.
© TiVo
About the album
- 1 disc(s) - 20 track(s)
- Total length: 01:13:26
- Main artists: Alan Feinberg
- Composer: John Redford
- Label: Steinway and Sons
- Genre: Classical
2013 Steinway and Sons 2013 Steinway and Sons
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