Especially... 7 Pieces for Harp
Alice Giles is unquestionably Australia’s finest harpist. First Prize at the 8th Israel International Harp Contest at twenty-one launched a solo career that has taken her around the world, with many works written expressly for her.
Dennis Eberhard composer
Moshe Lustig composer
André Caplet composer
Paul Hindemith composer
Luciano Berio composer
At the time of this release she was in constant demand as a soloist abroad and as a teacher who loved giving masterclasses. She taught harp at the Australian National University and had formed SHE (Seven Harp Ensemble) from among her students. SHE’s first CD, Bolmimerie (TP204), had recently appeared on Tall Poppies.
Here she turns to twentieth-century masterpieces for the instrument: Britten’s Suite and Hindemith’s Sonata among them. Berio’s Sequenza II holds a special place; the composer himself chose her as his favourite interpreter and she performed it for him around the world.
Dennis Eberhard wrote Especially... for her. Moshe Lustig’s Sonata and Sonatine were written for her husband Arnan Wiesel’s mother, the harpist Aviva Weisel, who was married to Lustig until his early death. Alice has given the premieres of both works.
Reviews
Just ten months ago Australian harpist Alice Giles launched a CD with SHE (Seven Harps Ensemble) featuring her colleagues and students at the Australian National University, Canberra, where she now teaches, after establishing an international career in Europe. This new disc’s title comes from “Especially ... “ written by Dennis Eberhard at the request of Giles, then a 22 year-old student in Cleveland. He was a composer for Cleveland Orchestra, among others, and his many grants included a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Giles liked his writing style and felt he could conjure something interesting. (Sometimes it pays to go right to the top!).
His “Especially . . . “ explores all manner of effects, drawing sound-colours rarely heard from a harp with techniques such as “bissbigliando” (rapidly repeated figures), frenzied climaxes, resonances building without being muffled, ‘pedal buzzes’, even singing in quarter tones into the harp’s sound holes while playing. The vivid colours of Australian artist LisaJane Batki-Braun’s cover image reflects this dramatic music which did not faze the intrepid Giles. She tackled this music’s demands with the technical mastery she applied to Benjamin Britten’s sedate yet darkly tinged Suite for Harp, a set of contrasting scenes rather than dance movements, Moshe Lustig’s flourishing 17-minute Sonata and Sonatine, Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Harp. Like Eberhard, Luciano Berio worked from treatises on modern harp technique by Carlos Salzedo to create his Sequenza II, another challenge for Giles. No wonder Berio praised the work of this extraordinary Australian technician and musician.
Artist
Alice Giles
Alice Giles draws a vast spectrum of colour and attack from the harp, from Salzedo's solo fireworks to Berio's Sequenza II and the intimate chamber worlds of Boyd, Kats-Chernin and flute-and-harp repertoire.
Tracks
- Overture 3:24
- Toccata 1:32
- Nocturne 2:45
- Fugue 1:20
- Hymn 5:28
- Especially... Dennis Eberhard 9:54
- Sonata Moshe Lustig 11:07
- À la française 4:22
- À l’espagnole 6:01
- Sonatine Moshe Lustig 7:55
- i. 5:10
- ii. 2:34
- iii. 3:14
- Sequenza II Luciano Berio 6:50
Suite for Harp, Op. 83 Benjamin Britten
Deux Divertissements André Caplet
Sonate für Harfe Paul Hindemith
Performers
- Alice Giles · harp
Composers
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. His operas are firmly established in the international repertoire, and more of them are played worldwide than those of any other composer born in the twentieth century.
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith wrote music that thinks like Bach and speaks in a lean modern tongue: dense counterpoint, clear forms, and harmony that uses every chromatic note without abandoning tonality. His sonatas for ordinary and unlikely instruments remain essential working repertoire.
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio's Sequenze strip solo instruments to their nerves: flute, harp, clarinet and more pushed through extended techniques into speech, breath and pure gesture. His orchestrations and collages treat other music as living material to be rewritten.
Contributors
Liner Notes
Alice Giles
Alice Giles draws a vast spectrum of colour and attack from the harp, from Salzedo's solo fireworks to Berio's Sequenza II and the intimate chamber worlds of Boyd, Kats-Chernin and flute-and-harp repertoire.
Where to listen
Especially... 7 Pieces for Harp is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Especially... 7 Pieces for Harp is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP213
- Total playing time
- 71 minutes 36 seconds
- Contributor
- Lyon & Healy
- Producer
- Aman Wiesel
Belinda Webster - Recording Engineer
- Belinda Webster
- Venue
- Llewellyn Hall
- Credit
- Alice Giles
- Release date
- 22 May 2010
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Musical work
copyright - © 2010 Tall Poppies Records
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 2010 Tall Poppies Records
- Category
- Modern Masterpieces
- Genres
- Contemporary Classical, Modernist Classical
- Barcode
- EAN 9399001002139
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