Summary: FOREVER BEELER SONATAS & SOLI OF ALAN BEELER LADISLAV BILAN VIBRAPHONE JAN DVOŘÁK BASSOON PETR HLADÍK FLUTE ALEŠ JANEČEK CLARINET LUCIE KAUCKÁ PIANO JIŘÍ KRÁL TUBA VIT MUŽÍK VIOLIN DALIBOR PROCHÁZKA BASS TROMBONE KAROLINA ROJAHN PIANO JENNIFER SLOWICK ENGLISH HORN, OBOE OVERVIEW FOREVER BEELER represents a sampling of composer Alan Beeler’s prolific output throughout his musical career, which is generally defined by his commitment to compositional craft and structural clarity. The works featured on this album also reveal a playfulness lying just under the surface of Beeler’s compositional perspective. This quality of Beeler’s music is most notable in the seven sonatas for piano, often accompanied by another instrument, included in FOREVER BEELER. Here, Beeler crafts engaging conversations between the players at his disposal – he employs a great deal of imitative writing and a more roaming style than in the more concise works on this album. A particularly clear example of Beeler’s fluid sense of style occurs in the second movement of his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, which is dominated by a subtle “swing” characteristic as well as the “cakewalk rhythm” popular in early twentieth century ragtime music. One of the most deeply intriguing works in FOREVER BEELER is the Three Early Pieces for Piano, which ranks among the first music Beeler formally composed and published. These short pieces exemplify the directness of Beeler’s compositional voice, as they clearly develop and resolve a singular musical idea. In addition to being succinct, finely crafted piano miniatures, they stand as evidence to this album’s unique offerings to listeners. It is extremely rare to have this kind of longitudinal representation of a composer’s career available in an individual recording. The collection is even more valuable because, despite his indomitable and specific approach to composition, Beeler’s oeuvre is filled with nuance, all of which stands out in FOREVER BEELER. This album is also marked by the way it testifies to the creative conditions of the mid-twentieth century, when Beeler emerged as a composer. The many aforementioned sonatas featured on FOREVER BEELER, for example, suggest the composer’s abiding interest in the forms and styles of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yet, piano works like the Twelve-Tone Quartal Etude indicate Beeler was not only subject to a variety of stylistic influences, but also extremely skilled in fulfilling their aesthetic mandates. Available for purchase now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p345/Forever_Beeler%2C_Sonatas_and_Soli_of_Alan_Beeler.html TRACK LISTING SONATA FOR CLARINET & PIANO Aleš Janeček clarinet Lucie Kaucká piano 1 I. 2 II. 3 III. SOMETHING MORE CHEERFUL SUITE - VARIATIONS ON A WELL-KNOWN TUNE Ladislav Bilan vibraphone 4 I. 5 IIa. & IIb. 6 III. 7 IV. 8 V. FLUTE & PIANO SONATA Petr Hladík flute Lucie Kaucká piano 9 I. 10 II. 11 III. MY IDENTITY SUITE Karolina Rojahn piano 12 I. 13 II. 14 III. ENGLISH HORN SONATA Jennifer Slowick English horn Karolina Rojahn piano 15 I. 16 II. 17 III. MULTI-TONAL SUITE Karolina Rojahn piano 18 I. Arpeggios & cords Using Conflicting Major Triads 19 II. Waltz 20 III. Turns, Triads & the Octatonic Scale 21 IV. Meandering Major & Augmented Triads 22 V. Major & Minor Triads Together 23 VI. Arpeggiated Non-Dominant Seventh Chords 24 VII. Expanding Chromatic Neighboring Tones 25 VIII. Contracting Minor Triads OBOE SONATA Jennifer Slowick oboe Karolina Rojahn piano 26 I. 27 II. 28 III. 3 EARLY PIECES FOR SOLO PIANO Lucie Kaucká piano 29 I. Piano Piece No. 1 30 II. Piano Piece No. 2 31 III. Piano Piece No. 3 SONATA DE CAMERA Jan Dvořák bassoon Lucie Kaucká piano 32 I. French Overture 33 II. Chaconne 34 III. Alla Concerto 35 BEELER’S FIT ’06 Karolina Rojahn piano SONATAS(continued)
