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NW 80766CD
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"The majestic beauty and savage turbulence that one often beholds while witnessing an awesome act of nature is also evident in Lois V Vierk's (b. 1951) vigorous and delicate music. In her meticulously wrought works, she enfolds the rapture of opulent expression in the elegance of formal rigor, a combination that derives much of its power and grace from a sensitive integration of Western experimental practices with the traditional classical music of Japan. 'I've always felt equally drawn to the West and to the East,' Vierk explains, 'in terms of my analytical training in Western music and the musical principles I learned during twelve years of actively studying and performing gagaku, ancient Japanese court music.' Because both musical cultures occupy such prominent places in Vierk's musical imagination, she recognized important points of intersection, including structural clarity and timbral sensuousness -- musical elements that she had inherited from the previous generation of composers. Three elements -- glissando as a formal function, extreme sensitivity to timbre relationships, and exponential structure -- are evident in the works on this recording, but the composer's primary intention has always been the clear, direct, physical presence of sound as a mode of expression. 'In my own music,' she insists, 'pure sensuous beauty is often a starting point. I work with emotional expressiveness and with many kinds of sound relationships as well, to build form and structure.' Also, although Vierk's music is not overtly programmatic, she often draws formal and poetic inspiration from dualistic images of the natural world, including the astronomical phenomenon of an eclipsing binary star, the border of a forest at elevation, and the mysterious power of the sea below its calm surface."
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CD
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XI 102CD
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1990 release. Lois V Vierk creates music with a distinctiveness that flows from a mixture of the intense analytical disciplines of her composition teacher Leonard Stein, and the gentle admonitions of her Japanese Court Music teacher Suenobu Togi to "just do it." The influences of Vierk's long study of Gagaku (the Imperial Court Music of Japan) do not show on the surface. Rather they are heard in knowing that what has happened and what will happen are part of a sure path toward fulfillment. Gagaku unfolds with ceremonious slowness. Time seems to be suspended before the taiko drum sounds its next musical heartbeat. But the drum does sound, and when it does, it divides the music that has just passed and that which is to follow, all part of an elegant musical order. The elegance and order of Vierk's music, like Gagaku, touch the heart of the person who listens, who takes time, who is open. On Simoom we hear three of Vierk's works for "big instruments," that is, multiples of the same instrument, treated more like single entities than like groups of voices: "Go Guitars" for five electric guitars tuned microtonally around "E," "Cirrus" for six trumpets, and "Simoom" for eight cellos. All three works employ what Vierk describes as "Exponential Structure," which utilizes exponential relationships to control time, pitch movement and rates of change. Within this system, Vierk creates very directional compositions possessing high energy. As in Gagaku, they unfold slowly. Although clearly building on the work of minimalist composers, Vierk's music is much more concerned with constant development and climax. This disc offers virtuoso performances by David Seidel, electric guitar; Gary Trosclair, trumpet; and Theodore Mook, cello.
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