American Quintets: Amy Beach, Florence Price & Samuel Barber | Chandos CHAN20224

American Quintets: Amy Beach, Florence Price & Samuel Barber

£14.49

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHAN20224

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 28th May 2021

Contents

About

Hailed by The Times for its ‘exhilarating performances’, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was dreamed up in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste, who met through the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. The Collective operates with a flexible roster which features many of today’s most inspirational musicians, both instrumentalists and singers, and its creative programming is marked by an ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of all forms and a desire to unearth lesser-known gems of the repertoire. This ethos is clear in their repertoire selection for this their début recording.

The Piano Quintet is one of Amy Beach’s better-known works, which the KCC collectively fell in love with during a residency at the Cheltenham festival. Composed in 1907, the work reflects the strong influence of the music of Brahms.

Florence Price famously claimed to face ‘two handicaps – those of sex and race’, and much of her music remained unpublished at the time of her death. Additionally, a significant quantity of her manuscripts had disappeared without trace. It was not until 2009 that a cache of them (including two lost symphonies) was discovered by property developers in the attic of an abandoned house in Illinois – including the score for the Piano Quintet in A minor that receives its world première recording here. Although characteristically conservative in its late-romantic idiom, the piece celebrates Price’s African American heritage with echoes of spirituals and hymns, and the popular juba stomping dance rooted in the slave plantations of the Deep South.

Between these two piano quintets sits Samuel Barber’s early Dover Beach, a setting of Matthew Arnold’s famous poem that has remained one of the best-known works in the voice-and-quartet repertoire.

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective:
- Matthew Rose (bass)
- Elena Urioste (violin)
- Melissa White (violin)
- Rosalind Ventris (viola)
- Laura van der Heijden (cello)
- Tom Poster (piano)

Reviews

If the aim of a debut is to captivate, showcase talent, lend insight into a curatorial perspective and leave the listener curious about future potential, then the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s first album certainly delivers. How refreshing – and timely – to highlight the work of women composers experiencing a renaissance. ... I’d be delighted to listen to more Beach and Price performed with this courage, erudition and aplomb, and keenly anticipate the Collective’s next offering.  Amy Blier-Carruthers
Gramophone July 2021
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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