Classical CD Reviews
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Peter Ware's String Octet Kabah 1st movment from the CD Impossible Dream
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
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