Genre : Classical

Catalogue: Phasma-Music 086

UPC: 731093480676

recording and editing: Andrei Lifenco

mastering: Andrei Lifenco

recording place: Life.N.Co Records, Chisinau, Moldova

recorded in  2024

graphic design: Michail Travlos

production management: Iwona Glinka

front cover: Digital Art by Michail Travlos

premiere: 

TATIANA COSTIUC soprano

ANDREI OTEAN baritone

MIHAIL AGAFITA conductor 

THE SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA OF THE NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC

 „SERGHEI LUNCHEVICI” OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

The Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmonic „SERGHEI LUNCHEVICI” of the Republic of Moldova under Mihail Agafita presents the new album CHISINAU 4. The outstanding album includes 6 world premiere recordings by six contemporary composers: Scott Brickman, James Danly, Brian Field, Kaori Nakano,  Alan Terricciano and  Eriko Yamaki

Product details

Scott Brickman 

01. Krusts for orchestra [09:47]

James Danly 

02. Reverie for string orchestra [07:03]

Brian Field 

Cançons d’amor for voice & orchestra

03. I. Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa [03:46]

04. II. Silueta [04:43]

05. III. Mirall [04:22]

06. IV. Gessamí [05:08]

Kaori Nakano

07. The girl's blue and yellow pendant for string orchestra [06:00]

Alan Terricciano

08. Masque for baritone and orchestra [27:58]

Eriko Yamaki

Prosperity for string orchestra

09. Wish [03:43]

10. Precious [02:14]

Total time: [75:08]

Krusts for orchestra, by Scott Brickman. 

“The Cross” is based both on the Bach chorale “Herzlich tut mir verlangen”, and the chorale prelude of the same name by one of his last pupils, Johann Muthel (1728-1788). Muthel moved from Leipzig, Germany to Riga, Latvia, where he was the organist at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. St. Peter’s Church is still one of the biggest Churches in Latvia, and organ concerts are often given there. I was inspired both by my visits to the Church, the concerts I heard there, and by the line of the Chorale - an angel comes down, and comforts the woman: "Look, the tomb has been emptied, the Lord risen from the dead". Hallelujah!.

Scott Brickman (born 1963, Chicago, USA), is passionate about his Latvian and Polish ancestry, Catholic and Jewish religions, Sports, and spending time with his three grandchildren. He is Professor of Music and Pedagogy at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, where he has taught since 1997.

Reverie for string orchestra, by James Danly. The first eight measures came to the composer in a dream. He wrote down the phrase the next morning and used it as the basis of his composition. A repeated note gives rise to a certain earnestness in the melody, which alternates with more lyrical interludes. A change of mood and a brief, lighthearted waltz round off this short piece.

James Danly studied with Alan Stout and David McKay. He has composed more than three hundred works in a variety of styles and genres. He says of his works, "I try to tell a story through a natural progression of contrasting moods and feelings. The story should not only be fresh but have character as well."

Cançons d’amor for voice & orchestra, by Brian Field

These love songs, based upon the verse of contemporary Catalonian poet Carles Duarte i Montserrat, are subtle, quiet and fragile works that explore the quiet – and private – intensity of love, and the metaphysical mysteries of that love. 

Ens vestim de llavis la nuesa (We dress our nakedness with lips) celebrates the strength of desire in us, the beauty of the skin when we love, the joy of existing when we feel the light of life in the eyes and the lips of our beloved. Is a text on a sensuality born within us from distant generations.

Silueta (Silhouette) reflects upon the mystery of the other when we love. In loving, we break borders between us, but in doing this we reflect, contemplate and question who we are. The new and decisive link we build with our beloved moves us to rethink identity.

Mirall (Mirror) is a fragile meditation on love and memory. Through the mirror, we see our face in the present and reflections of ourselves throughout time—driving us to remember the connections to people and places we have loved. As the work concludes, we feel the night within ourselves, recognizing in our heartbeat those heartbeats of people who remain alive if only because they live in our memories. 

Gessamí (Jasmine) is a love song written to celebrate the intersection of memory and emotions deeply interlinked through shared dreams and physical intimacy. Music, flowers, the sea or the evening are landscapes where the ephemeral and eternal coexist.

Brian Field’s music is an eclectic fusion of lyricism and driving rhythm that brings together elements of post-romanticism, minimalism and jazz. Mr. Field’s compositions include music for television and stage; solo acoustic, chamber, ballet, choral, electroacoustic and orchestral works. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and internationally. More at: www.brianfield.com 

The girl's blue and yellow pendant for string orchestra, by Kaori Nakano

Who can forget what happened in Ukraine on February 24, 2022?

A year later it's still going. A video of a girl reporting on a destroyed city has touched my heart.

Armed with gigantic explosive weapons and theoretically possessing delusions of persecution to protect himself, he stands in the way of the girl. War always hurts the most vulnerable children, old people and women. What will this war engrave on her mind? A pendant on her chest that pulsates with the beat of her heart tells us.

Kaori Nakano is a Japan-based composer, arranger, jazz pianist and educator. She has taught at Yamaha Music School for 30 years. Her works were selected in 2021 and 2022 at the Jazz New Music Reading Session of the Midwest Clinic, America's largest music education society. She has also been selected as a Semi-Finalist three times in the International Song Writing Competition. She has published her scores by Universal Edition in Vienna, TUX People's Music in the US and in Japan. More at : https://kaori-nakano.jimdosite.com/

Masque for baritone and orchestra, by Alan Terricciano.

             Prologue

      Blue

      Purple

      Green

      Orange

      White

      Violet

      Black (coda)

Masque originated as a collaborative project with the University of California, Irvine Music and Dance departments, artistic director Donald McKayle, conductor Stephen Tucker, baritone, Robin Buck and myself as the composer.  We developed the idea of reimagining Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of Red Death, as an actual masque - a work that combines music, theater and dance.  For the score, I created a song cycle for baritone and orchestra using Poe's poetry.  Each poetic excerpt references one of the seven colors of the rooms in the story.   The prologue uses text from the story itself while the seven sections take us through the rooms.  The only color not referenced in Poe's work was blue, so the text for the first room, Blue, was my adaptation of the opening verse of the poem, The Conqueror Worm.  Purple draws from The Raven, Green draws from The Haunted Palace, Orange draws from Israfel, White draws from The Sleeper, Violet draws from The City in the Sea, and the final room, Black, draws from The Haunted Palace again.

Now in his 30th year on the University of California, Irvine faculty, Alan Terricciano is a Professor of Dance and an Associate Dean for the Claire Trevor School of the Arts.  Educated at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music, Alan is professionally active as a composer for choreography, the theater and the concert hall, having created over 150 original scores over his professional career. Collaborators have included the Minnesota Orchestra, Northwestern University’s New Music Ensemble, the New Swan Shakespeare Festival and choreographers including Colin Connor, David Grenke, Liz Lerman, Donald McKayle, Doug Nielson, and Jeff Slayton. He has been a proud partner with Phasma-Music since 2017.

Masque of the Red Death 1

Introduction

(Words in apostrophes have their tenses changed, or have been changed to first-person)

The external world ‘can’ take care of itself. In the meantime it ‘is’ folly to grieve,

or to think. ‘I’ have provided all the appliances of pleasure. …Buffoons,

…improvisatori, …ballet-dancers, …musicians. There ‘is’ beauty; there ‘is’

wine. All these and security ‘are’ within. Without …the “Red Death.”

Adapted from E A Poe - The Masque of the Red Death

Blue

Lo! ‘tis a gala night

Within these blue-banked walls!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In moon-spun silk, amid these azure halls,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of laughs and cheers,

While the orchestra breathes lustfully

The music of the spheres.

Terricciano - Parody of The Conqueror Worm, Opening Stanza

(original text from Conqueror Worm)

Lo! ‘tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

E A Poe - From The Conqueror Worm, Opening Stanza

Purple

And the silken sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me–filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating;

“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door–

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;

This it is and nothing more.”

E A Poe - From The Raven, Stanza III

Masque of the Red Death 2

Green

In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace–

Radiant Palace–reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion–

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

E A Poe - From The Haunted Palace, Opening Stanza

Orange

And they say (the starry choir

And the other listening things)

That Israfel’s fire

Is owing to the lyre

By which he sits and sings–

The trembling living wire

Of those unusual strings

E A Poe - From Israfel, Stanza III

White

At midnight, in the month of June,

I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,

Exhales from out her golden rim,

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley.…

E A Poe - From The Sleeper, Opening Stanza

Masque of the Red Death 3

Violet

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently–

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free–

Up domes–up spires–up kingly halls–

Up fanes–up Babylon-like walls–

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers–

Up many and many a marvelous shrine

Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

E A Poe - From The City in the Sea, Stanza II

Black

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate… (from Stanza V)

And travelers now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

To a discordant melody,

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rushed out forever

And laugh–but smile no more. (from Stanza VI)

E A Poe - From The Haunted Palace, Stanza’s V and VI

Prosperity for string orchestra, by Eriko Yamaki. This composition comprises two sections: the first titled "Wishes" and the second titled "Precious." Both pieces were composed with heartfelt prayers for the future peace of your most cherished and beloved ones, especially for children.

Eriko Yamaki, composition, jazz piano, started playing piano at age 4 and flute when she was 11. After graduating from Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, she attended Berklee College of Music where she received a degree in Jazz Composition and studied piano. After Berklee, she played in the Boston area with the Sonny Watson Quintet and East West Quartet. In 2016, after a somewhat extended hiatus, Eriko resumed writing and performing with the jazz trio “TRIchrO,” whose first CD “Gravity” was released in 2018. Eriko has also been composing classical pieces which have achieved recognition in various composition competitions and a few albums were released from Naxos Records.  More at: erikoyamaki.com