Classical CD Reviews

Free MP3 of Peter Ware's String Octet Kabah 1st movment from the CD Impossible Dream
"Harting-Ware has an enjoyable way about the instrument . Guitar fans take note." -The North Jersey Herald & News.

Impossible Dream

"The CCM Contemporary Music Ensemble brings experience and understanding to its telling performances of compositions by Gerhard Samuel, Richard Jordan Smoot, and Peter Ware.  The Smoot and Ware are fine pieces, staking out their musical territories and exploring them fully. The Samuel is a small masterpiece, a richly evocative elegy and a fascinating essay in counterpoint and orchestration. 
Lynn Harting-Ware gives a finely nuanced performance of the solo part in the Smoot Concerto.  Her playing is remarkably clean, with all details audible. This is a fine disc, one that repays close and repeated hearings."  -American Record Guide

Impossible Dream: CONCERTO FOR GUITAR  Richard J. Smoot
At 11:19 the Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra is the shortest work on this disc. It's baroque brevity belies the richness of the music which has a cool oriental palette of Japanese scales and motifs giving the piece a broad vision that is often evocative. As a composer / guitarist, Smoot knows the subtle modulations that suit his instrument and there are hints of Villa-Lobos in some of the thematic treatments. The third movement, with its pounding march-like theme is a fitting conclusion to a compact and lively concerto." -Tim Panting, Classical Guitar Magazine

Impossible Dream: 
KABAH: "An exotically evocative piece, describing the atmosphere and spirit of the place with eerie harmonics, long-held notes and often sparse harmonies conveying a sense of vast emptiness and antiquity." -The Washington Post "Kabah, inspired by a Mayan ruin in Mexico's Yucatan peninsular, is a forceful and intense piece that yields little to the narrative style." -Tim Panting, Classical Guitar magazine

Impossible Dream:
"Harting-Ware plays with a warmth and vigour that builds on the foundations of some attractive music. Musically, this CD is for those who venture further than their own front door. One cannot help but be affected by it."

-Tim Panting, Classical Guitar Magazine
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Impossible Dream:
"Peter Ware's 'Kabah' begins with a haunting, almost eerie prestissimo appassionato accented by sweeping strings and a bed of low notes under a single hanging violin line, creating a sense of awe and mystery. In the andante con mosso, low note clusters are again used to create that sense of weight, the weight of years.  Maybe it's just the unsettling nature of the arrangement that makes presto con brio convey such a sinister feel."  -The North Jersey Herald & New

e-mail: music@acoma-co.com

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Last modified September 14, 2009