Jeroen van Veen THE BEST OF MINIMAL PIANO MUSIC

 

THE BEST OF MINIMAL PIANO MUSIC

 

Jeroen van Veen RICHTER Solo Piano Music

Having made a gradual switch during the 15 years since his first album was published from electronica to instrumental variations on ambient and minimalism, Max Richter is among the most commercially successful composers of our time. This album of his solo piano music belongs in the genre explored so thoroughly for Brilliant Classics by Jeroen van Veen, whose prolific recording history includes hugely popular albums of Philip Glass (BC9419) and Michael Nyman (BC95112), Ludovico Einaudi (BC94910) and Yann Tiersen(BC95129) and his fellow Dutch musician Jakob ter Veldhuis (BC94873) and himself (BC9454). The appetite for slowly moving,unchallenging, post Minimalist music is apparently infinite, and so this new album is sure to be a success.Born in 1966,Richter has in the last few years achieved international fame with his recomposed version of Vivaldi`s Four Seasons, which topped the iTunes chart in the UK, the US and Germany. Then last year, came the record breaking Sleep,an eight hour cradle song which like the Vivaldi mixed live and pre recorded, electronic and acoustic sounds, to induce and accompany deep slumber.The songs on this album are all shorter, though sharing the somnambulistic mood of Sleep. Vladimir's Blues featured on a BBC documentary series about the deep sea,while The Twins (Prague) was used in a series on Auschwitz, The Nazis and the Final Solution. As Richter`s own programme notes explain, the music is for beginners,based on classical Alberti style bass figures.Several tracks derive from his albums The Blue Notebooks and Songs from Before; H in New England is extracted from the incidental music written by Richter for the film Henry May Long.

Jeroen van Veen SIMEON TEN HOLT Solo Piano Music Volume I - V

Very recently passed away at age 89 Simeon ten Holt was the Icon of Dutch minimalism. His works for multiple pianos include his most famous work, ‘Canto Ostinato’, which gained cult status with a large audience not necessarily familiar with traditional classical music.

The slowly shifting repeated patterns in Ten Holt’s music have a hypnotic and hallucinatory effect on listeners, during concerts which may take several hours.

Dutch pianist Jeroen van Veen is “the leading exponent of minimalism in Holland” (Alan Swanson in Fanfare), a close acquaintance of Ten Holt, the ideal interpreter of his music.

Born in 1923, Simeon ten Holt was a leading Dutch composer who came to attention following studies in Paris with Honegger and Milhaud. His music is best described as minimalist, and draws on the principles of Western harmony as well as those of aleatoricism.

This 5CD compilation is dedicated to Ten Holt’s music for piano, an instrument that dominates his output and which for him contained all the possibilities he needed as a composer. Undoubtedly the most famous work featured is Canto Ostinato – a piece of stretched tones and fixed parts which, depending on the amount of repetition_/_phrasing_/_emphasis and volume as determined by the individual performer, provides for an almost endless range of performances.