Michael Zev Gordon: Diary Pieces | Joseph Houston (piano) | Resonus Classics | RES10322

Michael Zev Gordon: Diary Pieces

£12.99
Total playing time [80:12]

Joseph Houston (piano)

In 2015, composer Michael Zev Gordon took up the idea of writing musical diary entries, which has spawned this ongoing series of small pieces for solo piano. With most written in a single day, with only minor subsequent refinements, Gordon beautifully captures a feeling, a nuance, an image and, as is the nature of a diary, often with personal associations.

Pianist Joseph Houston sensitively responds to Gordon’s recurring themes of the bitter- sweet waltz, unwavering stillness, elegiac simplicity, folk-like dances and fleeting brilliance.

Album Booklet (PDF)

Tracklist

Diary Pieces 2016
1. Before Playing Bach
2. A Still Moment
3. Ferragosto
4. A Hoopoe Lands in Front of Me
5. Invention
6. Distance
7. After Playing Bach

Diary Pieces 2018
8. Summer Waltz No. 2
9. Butterflies
10. Ferragosto in campagna
11. Folkish
12. Gondolalied
13. Invention
14. Between New Year and Yom Kippur

Diary Pieces 2019 Set 1
15. May Day 1
16. May Day 2
17. Flower
18. Dondolo
19. A Moment of Jazz
20. Always Near
21. Last Day

Diary Pieces 2019 Set 2
22. Held Up
23. Another Epitaph
24. Invention for Jamie
25. Sfumatore
26. Simple Song
27. Judah Halevi
28. Long, Long Ago

Diary Pieces 2020
29. 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz (23rd January)
30. Locked-down, Opened up
31. Wild Raspberries in Queen's Wood
32. This One for Jacob
33. For Mum
34. Darkening
35. First day at Castellucia

Diary Pieces 2021 Set 1
36. Slow Fade
37. Folksong
38. Apollo
39. Slow Waltz
40. As If Floating
41. 1564
42. White Roses, September Morning Sun, My Son Leaving Home

Diary Pieces 2021 Set 2
43. Oxford Blues for Josh
44. Once More Raspberries in Queen’s Wood
45. Song for Joe
46. Fugato per Ferragosto
47. In memoriam Jane and Tony
48. Remembering Louis
49. Into the Distance

Diary Pieces 2022
50. Fauré
51. Open-Hearted (for Andy)
52. Mancino
53. After Icarus
54. Still Settling
55. Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit
56. Simplicity

“

'This disc contains music of a much more personal nature, almost a personal journal, consisting of eight groups of seven very short piano pieces. [...] The shortest movement is just 21 seconds long (Butterflies) and the longest runs for just over three minutes. Most of them capture a single idea and Gordon simply lets that idea speak for itself. In a way the pieces appear to be ‘doodles’, little musical figurines, which all could have been extended into more substantial works if that had been the intention. Instead, we have a varied tapestry of miniatures in a number of musical idioms, although Gordon’s principle musical language is tonal.'

- British Music Society

'This disc contains music of a much more personal nature, almost a personal journal, consisting of eight groups of seven very short piano pieces. [...] The shortest movement is just 21 seconds long (Butterflies) and the longest runs for just over three minutes. Most of them capture a single idea and Gordon simply lets that idea speak for itself. In a way the pieces appear to be ‘doodles’, little musical figurines, which all could have been extended into more substantial works if that had been the intention. Instead, we have a varied tapestry of miniatures in a number of musical idioms, although Gordon’s principle musical language is tonal.'
British Music Society

Credits
© 2024 Resonus Limited
Ⓟ 2024 Resonus Limited
Catalogue No. RES10322
Producer, engineer & editor: Adam Binks
EAN: 5060262793664
Release date: 8 December 2023