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AGP34 features music by Stefan Wolpe, who was born in Germany, emigrated to Palestine in 1933, and to the United States in 1938, where he exerted considerable influence on the next generation of American composers. All of the works in this torrent date from his American residence. Wolpe's music has considerable rhythmic, harmonic, and timbral complexity, and can be exhilirating to listen to if attended to closely. Having studied with Webern for four years on his way to Palestine, he sometimes used serial technique, but with tone rows of greater than or less than 12 notes, thus enabling him to emphasize some notes in the chromatic scale more than others. Enactments for Three Pianos (1950-53) is an astonishing work--over 30 minutes long and containing an incredible amount of musical content. The other pieces in this installment are all for mixed chamber ensembles. Quartet (1950-54) is scored for trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, and percussion. Piece in Two Parts for Six Players (1962) is scored for violin, clarinet, trumpet, cello, harp, and piano. The two chamber pieces (1964 and 1965-66) are for larger ensembles. If you like this music, you should also check out Wolpe's String Quartet from 1970--one of his last works--which is available in an excellent and very reasonably priced 2CD set from Vox, with works by a suite of other great American composers. The installment includes a text file containing the liner notes from the five LPs from which these works were transcribed. To download AGP34 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS.
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