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Home » Electroacoustic/Contemporary » BRANT, HENRY: Collected Works Vol 9

BRANT, HENRY: Collected Works Vol  9
BRANT, HENRY: Collected Works Vol 9
Dormant Craters, Ceremony, Homeless People
Three excellent pieces very well recorded of fairly recent works (1954, 1995, 1993) by the last of the great American maverick composers (he's 95 and still busy); the master of spatialised acoustic composition -all his pieces feature ensembles and musicians arranged around and through the listening space: never loudspeakers or electronics. Great nets of noise and polyphonic, polymetric, simultaneous but uncannily coherent sounds whirl about, and settle into conversational groups or randomised chatter, almost genre-free, always human and filled with complexity and moment-to-moment detail. Craters is for several percussion groups: two jazz kits, a gamelan ensemble, eight tympani, 14 gongs and other metallophones, a steel drum ensemble, handbells and the usual Chinese blocks, gran casas and multiple snare drums. Ceremony features a four-hand piano and most of a small orchestra divided into small groups distributed around the room, with prominent percussion and 4 singers (chorally organised). Homeless People is for a string quartet - one member in each corner of the room, the inside of a piano (here played by Brant himself) and a distant accordion. Inevitably the 360 sound picture is absent from these recordings but the clarity, originality and power of the compositions is manifest. A great CD from an important composer. Nice booklet with useful notes.

Code: Innova416
Price: £14.50